Dinosaurs

[Starforest]

Gosh. The triceritops and the T-rex were the classical dinosaurs. Now we found out one didn't exist?!?! O.o what is the world coming to!?!?!???

[Ratlover4194]

I think both herbivores and carnivores are equally intense. I don't really prefer one over the other.

Well, I just figured out that Triceratops were proven to never exist. Apparently close relatives of theirs do, but the real ones never lived. That kind of killed my day :/

Where in the world did you see that?! o.O I don't believe that one bit. Many, many Triceratops specimens have been found, and it is almost as well-studied as the T-rex. It is one of the most well-known dinosaurs and includes some of the best-preserved specimens. And now suddenly it's just... poof, off in fairytale land?? o.o (I'm not trying to be rude to you by any means, but I think whoever put out this information must be either lying or a little cuckoo...) Could you provide us with more information, or a link to where this is said (if there is any such link available), please?

I was saying that the original Triceratops is not real. There are close relatives of them that are almost identical, but the body structure and horn position is slightly different. Kosmoceratops and Utahceratops are close relatives, while the Triceratops and Torosaurus were found to be the same dinosaur. The articles are kind of long, but I will post them anyway:

http://news.discovery.com/dinosaurs/tri ... osaur.html
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/22/sc ... iceratops/

I read the first article. If you read the comments, people have a very good point-- the classic Triceratops is much larger than the largest-known Torosaurus. So... either they shrunk as they aged or this theory is a little off. I mean, honestly! How many more Triceratops have been found versus Torosaurus?? I suppose they're finding all the juvaniles of a species and not a great deal of adults, and I find that hard to believe, because even though many young animals do not make it to adulthood, the usual cause of death is from predators, and in that case, the bones would likely be eaten, broken, spread across a great area, washed away with no meat to hold them together, or simply not fossilize. I'm surprised that this is Jack Horner's theory, though. He's like, the biggest name in paleontology. But how do they know that the Torosaurus wasn't a subspecies or closely-related species of Triceratops?? It's not like they could do DNA testing. >.< It could be like the relationship between coyotes and wolves, or lions and tigers--they can still interbreed, but they are considered different animals. I still don't really buy the theory. But thanks for sharing those articles!

[Starforest]

Thanks for sharing those articles!

[Oceansong-Direwolf]

My favorite dinosaur would have to be little, cute Sciopionyx. I like giving it the nickname "Skippy." Sounds cute for a little dinosaur, don't you think? It was a coelurosaur, my favorite group of dinosaurs. And it was quite small. For more information on them, go to the following links.

Sciopionyx: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scipionyx
Coelurosauria: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelurosauria

[fernpetal]

Im not really into dinos but i like learning new things about them as much as any other animal, but my borther on the other hand is now 5 he LOVES dinos i have videos of him pointing to the pictures of dinos and giving me the CORRECT sciantific name when he was only 3. but my favortie dino would have to be the brontosaurus. Its just so uniqe lol

[Oceansong-Direwolf]

Im not really into dinos but i like learning new things about them as much as any other animal, but my borther on the other hand is now 5 he LOVES dinos i have videos of him pointing to the pictures of dinos and giving me the CORRECT sciantific name when he was only 3. but my favortie dino would have to be the brontosaurus. Its just so uniqe lol

Lol that seems cute, what your brother did. But Brontosaurus has been renamed to Apatosaurus. Or so very many recent dinosaur books say.

[fernpetal]

Hmmm, didnt know that! Ill have to research about it a little more lol you learn somthing new everyday!

[Floofysaur]

The velocirapter tends to be my favorite... or is it the compy lol XD any who I used to have this game called: Carnivores: where you hunt the easiest prey first then build up to hunt the massive T-Rex XD sadly its not a down-loadable game for a pc, but it was fun while it lasted :3

[kiba wolf fang]

Anyone Here Watch Dinosaur Planet I watch it every wednsday lol.My favorite dinosaur is spinosaurs It eats fish and meat and has been claimed to be the lagest carniverous dinosaur which was ever alive.

[Oceansong-Direwolf]

Anyone Here Watch Dinosaur Planet I watch it every wednsday lol.My favorite dinosaur is spinosaurs It eats fish and meat and has been claimed to be the lagest carniverous dinosaur which was ever alive.

Spinosaurus has to definitely be one of my favorite dinosaurs (not my ultimate favorite, but a favorite).

[Grin]

One of my favorite dinosaurs has to be the Archaeopteryx. Their feathered appearance and theoretical behavior always appeals to me. However, I have always been fascinated with ancient marine life as well. My favorite marine dinosaurs would have to be species of mosasaurs, the dolichorhynchops, and the liopleurodon.

From a book I own, I recall several facts about the liopleurodon, but they have apparently been proven as high exaggerated estimations. For instance, my book says that the creature could weigh up to 150 tons and it could crush a medium-sized vehicle in its jaws. The largest specimen found was thought to be 80 feet long. The jaws were also approximately 6 feet in length, so a human being would be capable of laying down in its mouth, although I'm sure no one would want to. x) However, I'm researching at the moment and see that much more recent studies show that the liopleurodon would have been considerably smaller. The largest species probably would have grown up to only 20 tons and 65 feet long. I think this species serves as evidence of how much things can change in the world of paleontology.

One summer, I did research on dinosaurs for fun. That's how dinosaur-obsessed I used to be. x) Paleontology has actually been a possible career choice for me as well. The fact that dinosaur remains are millions of years old is simply amazing and difficult to fathom.

[D0m]

The Utahraptor has been my favourite forever it was similar to the Veloricaraptor but larger and faster. I also love the Lipluradon, it was and still is the largest animal EVER, was 4 ish times the size of a blue whale!!!! (Slight exaggeration)
Giganatosaurus is huge for a land carnivorous Trianosaur even bigger than the Tyrannosaurus Rex!!
Dinosaurs are funny

[La Striata]

For the record, Lipleurodon was not a dinosaur. The prehistoric marine reptiles were all more closely related to lizards and snakes than they were to arcosaurs (crocodiles and dinosaurs/birds).

I've had a re-newed interest in dinosaurs ever since finding out that birds basically are dinosaurs. Not related or descended from dinosaurs, but that they are dinosaurs.

[Nordue]

• I like to read Love in the time of Chasmosaurs from time to time. It's a blog about vintage dinosaur art and paleoart.

[La Striata]

I've just finished reading Matthew Martyniuk's Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds and other Winged Dinosaurs. I can't recommend it enough. Apart from focusing on almost unheard of Jurassic-Cretaceous birds which are usually overshadowed by their larger cousins, his chapter on dromaeosaurs (raptors) is most enlightening:

[Raptors] did not actually resemble the reptilian monsters depicted in popular cinema, but were very large predatory ground birds, some with wings of substantial size (evidence of this comes from feather anchor points found on the wing bones of Velociraptor mongoliensis). The "raptors" did not closely resemble their carnosaurian cousins, but rather oversized Archaeopteryx.