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Thread: What Is Your Favorite Dinosaur...?

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Circle_10 View Post
    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 I was reading paleontology textbooks when I was like 12 (I still have a lot of them, although most of them are quite out of date now).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.
    Pretty sure nothing, not even dolphins or dogs have the intelligence of something like a chimpanzee. But any strategic thinking dinosaur on any level is gonna be a bad day. Any dinosaur with the complex thinking capacity of a wolf pack (assuming that ever existed) would be apex predators.

    Always fun to think what might have happened if there was no KT event, how intelligent dinosaurs might have evolved given another 65 million years. Obviously with some species like sharks and crocs there doesn't seem to be any change at all despite opportunity and of course if they didn't all get wiped out 65 million years ago we probably wouldn't exist to talk about it.
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  2. #12
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    Bigtime tyrannosaur nerd here, as you mighta guessed from Junior in my av. "Go BIGGEST or Go Home"...
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  3. #13
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    Denver the Last Dinosaur


  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteyrAUG View Post
    Pretty sure nothing, not even dolphins or dogs have the intelligence of something like a chimpanzee. But any strategic thinking dinosaur on any level is gonna be a bad day. Any dinosaur with the complex thinking capacity of a wolf pack (assuming that ever existed) would be apex predators.

    Always fun to think what might have happened if there was no KT event, how intelligent dinosaurs might have evolved given another 65 million years. Obviously with some species like sharks and crocs there doesn't seem to be any change at all despite opportunity and of course if they didn't all get wiped out 65 million years ago we probably wouldn't exist to talk about it.
    The smartest non humans on the planet are probably (in no particular order, as I’m not sure where they currently rank in relation to one another) - great apes, dolphins/orcas/other “toothed whales”, and parrots and corvids (crow/raven family).

    Yeah pack-hunting in dinosaurs is kind of in question. There really isn’t any true evidence of coordinated hunting in theropod dinosaurs. There are fossil beds that contain large numbers of a single species that implies they had grouped together for some reason and died around the same time, but marine iguanas also hang out in big groups as well. There are fossilized footprints that show multiple individuals of the same species of theropod apparently moving together as a pack....but really we don’t know if those individuals were actually moving together or just crossing the same stretch of ground one after another over a period of several hours or days. And even if they did associate with one another, they still might have hunted independently. Some argue that dinosaur brains generally weren’t developed to the point you would expect to see in animals that engage in coordinated group hunting.

    “Mob” style social hunting has been proposed, where multiple predators might converge on a single prey item and through combined but individual efforts, bring it down or dismember the body - kind of how Komodo dragons and crocodiles do it.
    Social hunting is also pretty rare in modern dinosaurs. Off the top of my head the only predatory bird that hunts in groups that I can think of are Harris hawks. On the other hand Harris hawks also show that you can’t infer too much about a creature’s capacity for social behavior based purely on brain size, as Harris hawks aren’t particularly big-brained (Hawks and other birds of prey aren’t morons but are far from the “smartest” birds), on the other, other hand some have argued that Harris hawk hunting behavior *looks* more sophisticated than it actually is, with the birds engaging in something more akin to the “mob” hunting I mentioned above.


    Speculating about how dinosaurs would have evolved sans a K/T extinction event (usually called the K/Pg extinction now) is quite interesting, and a lot of people have weighed in over the years. Dougal Dixon’s The New Dinosaurs, is one example that springs to mind.
    One common trope you see though are the “Dinosauroids” - very human-shaped, highly derived sapient dinosaurs. Usually described as descended from troodonts or dromaeosaurs but not always. It’s actually highly unlikely that a dinosaur that evolved sapience, would also evolve a similar body form to humans as well. Humans are shaped the way we are because of our early evolution from brachiating tree-dwelling primates. It kind of speaks about the arrogance of our species that when imaging other speculative sophonts, we assume they would look like us, as though the “humanoid” form was the inevitable culmination in the evolution of intelligent life.

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    Not really sure which is my favorite, but I sure would like to kick that little purple b@$^@rd in the nerts....
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  6. #16
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    T-Rex.

    Not sure if this is true, but I heard that due to their scarcity and value, every dinosaur bone on display is a replica.

  7. #17
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    It's a toss-up....Nancy Pelosi or Maxine Waters....

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  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Business_Casual View Post
    T-Rex.

    Not sure if this is true, but I heard that due to their scarcity and value, every dinosaur bone on display is a replica.

    Yes, in many cases the actual fossils are kept in storage, with casts being what you see on display. This is due to the value of the fossils and also allows paleontologists to continue to study the actual specimen more easily than if it were articulated and on display. The casts are also lighter and easier to work with when assembling them for display as well, and if a cast gets broken, it’s no big deal.

  9. #19
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    Probably my mother, but she's extinct now....

    Not a 'dinosaur', but that ere +/- million years, Megalodon....

  10. #20
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    Growing up, of course I'd have said the T-Rex, but as my daughter has shown interest in dinosaurs, I've brushed up on my knowledge. I'd have to say the ankylosaurs are my favorites. They remind me of myself (or at least how I perceive myself). Leave them alone, and they won't bother you, but attempt to harm them or their juveniles, and they pack a wallop.

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