What Is Your Favorite Dinosaur...?

[SteyrAUG]

For "genus nerds" we are including pterosaurs even though they aren't correctly dinosaurs.

I know for most kids it's T-rex unless you grew up post Jurassic park then it might be Velociraptor, but for me it's Allosaurus.

First saw the fossils in person at the Smithsonian around 1977, they didn't yet have a T Rex, and while I had been reading dinosaur books for years I didn't fully get it until it was actually in front of me and in relatable scale. Prior to that I either imagined them as monstrous dragons 5 times their actual size or thinking "30 feet doesn't seem that big", that is until you are standing in front of it and imagining it chasing your ass through the forest, then it's really big but not so Godzilla big that you might actually be able to hide from it.



I also had quite the collection of Aurora "Prehistoric Scenes" dinosaur models and Allosaurus was available long before T Rex and we never even heard of Velociraptor. I also feel like I could handle a Velociraptor with a 12 gauge shotgun, even the huge Hollywood varieties that stood at 6 feet or more, twice the size of any known example in the fossil record.

I feel like I'd need a Solothurn for an Allosaurus.

[WillieThom]

You named it. Followed closely by the Stegosaurus, which is actually the dinosaur I made out of clay as a project in elementary school.

But the Allosaurus takes the top spot. It was always my favorite. But not due to any real knowledge. It’s simply because as a kid, I wanted to be different from all the T-Rex and/or Velociraptor fans.

[utahjeepr]

I liked the T-Rex and other bipeds as a kid, but the Triceratops was my favorite. Just thought they looked cool. When your 7 that's a logical argument.

[czgunner]

Tricerotops (sp?) and stegosaurus.
I remember being taught that the brontosaurus had 2 brains. LOL.

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[Honu]

Megladon
Land hard to say so many were cool Ankylosaurus type maybe ?

[titsonritz]

The Allosaurus was my favorite meat eater and the Triceratops was my favorite plant eater. The Ankylosaurus gets the honorable mention.

[titsonritz]

Tricerotops (sp?) and .
I remember being taught that the brontosaurus had 2 brains. LOL.

I remember being taught the 2 brain thing was associated with Ankylosaurus and Stegosaurus to "control" their tail weapons. The Brontosaurus thing I remember was it going back and forth with the Apatosaurus as to whether they were the same critter or two separate but related species.

[gunnerblue]

Baryonyx ("heavy claw") aka the grizzly bear dinosaur.

Allosaurus as the contrarian choice to T. Rex

Carnotaurus as a cool underdog that I'm glad to see getting some airtime in my kid's tv shows.

Ankylosaurus is the obvious pick for most badass herbivore

[SteyrAUG]

Tricerotops (sp?) and stegosaurus.
I remember being taught that the brontosaurus had 2 brains. LOL.

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Actually it was stegosaurus that archeologists once suggested could have had two brains.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...myth-12155823/

For a time some thought it could think with it's ass, which if true would finally be the perfect comeback for when my dad told me to "start thinking with my head instead of my ass."

It's kind of funny how limited our knowledge of dinosaurs was all through the 1970s and 1980s and how in contrast complete speculation is passed on as known facts.

The whole dinosaurs all might have had feathers era was my favorite. Because most reptiles do have feathers you know and fossilized bones are pretty conclusive one way or another. I always wanted to postulate that all dinosaurs were spiny, like sea urchins but we can't know for sure but it probably was that way.

[Circle_10]

The amount of attention I’ve paid to the world of paleontology has fluctuated over the years, but even during my less interested periods I think it’s pretty accurate to call myself a lifelong dinosaur nerd. I was reading paleontology textbooks when I was like 12 (I still have a lot of them, although most of them are quite out of date now). I don’t really think I have a specific favorite dinosaur honestly, as there are so many that are cool. Tyrannosaurs and dromaeosaurs are groups I’ve kind gravitated towards on the past, but there’s just so many cool and bizarre taxa.

One newer genus I found particularly neat though is Latenivenatrix mcmasterae - the giant northern troodont discovered in Alberta Canada. The known specimen is estimated to have a body length of up to 11.5 feet.


While the actual intelligence of non-avian dinosaurs is up for debate, none of them were likely as smart as, say, a chimpanzee or something. Still, the idea of being hunted by something like Latenivenatrix in the claustrophobic environment of some dark boreal forests is kind of frightening in a cool way to me.