What are your favorite dinosaurs?

[[][][]cordylus[][][]]

All spinosaurids
tyrannosaurus
velociraptor(feathery)
masiakosaurus
stegosaurus
ankylosaurus
compsognathas
archeopteryx

[stoneage]

What you say about Brontosaurus is true but I believe most of the other bones used were at least close.

[stoneage]

As you know when science does't know something they make something up that they think might be right. There still doing it today. A single tooth and you can have a whole model dinosaur.

[sbell]

Jun 10, 2008 23:24:28 GMT stoneage said:

As you know when science does't know something they make something up that they think might be right. There still doing it today. A single tooth and you can have a whole model dinosaur.

I really don't want to get drawn into this but...give me an example of a dinosaur genus or species named solely on the basis of one tooth.

[stoneage]

Cardiodon a sauropod.

[stoneage]

Actually I was thinking more along the line of Trachodon which was based on 7 unassociated teeth and became a Marx dinosaur toy model. There is also Megalodon based on teeth only. Yes I know its not a dinosaur. Therizinosaurus was originally based on some claws. With prehistoric mammals often only the teeth or a jaw remain.(Minusculodelphis) My point was that great things often are made of little evidence.

[thagomizer]

Jun 11, 2008 3:26:56 GMT sbell said:

Jun 10, 2008 23:24:28 GMT stoneage said:

As you know when science does't know something they make something up that they think might be right. There still doing it today. A single tooth and you can have a whole model dinosaur.

I really don't want to get drawn into this but...give me an example of a dinosaur genus or species named solely on the basis of one tooth.

Iquanodon, Troodon, Deinodon, Koparion, Aublysodon, etc. etc. etc... sometimes they get other bones referred to them, sometimes not. Almost always impossible to tell apart from related genera. Luckily this is not a common practice anymore

But I agree, people have the impression we know a lot more about dinosaurs than we do. It's reasonable to base fragmentary species on relative,s but a lot is still guesswork. Somebody mentioned Brontosaurus, and repeated the mistaken impression that it was a chimera. The 'camarasaur' head wasn't the basis for the misassignment at all--nobody knew what diplodocid heads were like (long and thin), so they based the head on other sauropod skulls known at the time. Educated guess. Same reason early T. rex monts had allosaur-like arms with three fingers. Who'd have guessed they had puny two-fingered arms? When rex relatives were found, they changed them to small and two-fingered, but it was still an educated guess. The first complete T. rex arms came from Sue!

[stoneage]

Yes its virtually impossible to distingish between different species based on tooth characteristics alone.

[thagomizer]

Jun 11, 2008 13:09:45 GMT stoneage said:

Yes its virtually impossible to distingish between different species based on tooth characteristics alone.

In reptiles and birds, yes. Mammals have very distinctive teeth, so distinguishing teeth is easy. You still get plenty of mammals based on teeth.

[stoneage]

I was talking only about dinosaurs in general though I didn't make that clear. What about shark teeth?

[sbell]

Jun 11, 2008 14:17:38 GMT stoneage said:

I was talking only about dinosaurs in general though I didn't make that clear. What about shark teeth?

Sharks, like mammals, have highly distinctive teeth that are very good indicators of relationships, which in turn are very good for at least approximating appearance.

For the record, most scientists don't generally create reconstructions of the taxa they name; that is left to artists of various backgrounds after the material is described (in wordy, painful to read detail ).

But it is not true that no shark skeletons are known--cladoselache, hybodus, pleurocanths, and relatives of Helicoprion, for example, are all known. And the teeth within those groups tend to be conservative enough that we can assume, until better evidence suggests otherwise, that they would look roughly similar. Hence, Carcharocles megalodon can be assumed to look similar to Carcharodon carcharias since they have very similar teeth, and likely had the same life habit.

It is when the teeth found do not resemble anything we know that reconstructions get shaky (but inferences can still be made as to relationship, diet, life habit, etc).

[therizinosaurus]

My favorites are Therizinosaurus, Deinocheirus, Saurophaganax, Falcarius, Mononychus (Mononykus?), and Gigantoraptor. I like pretty much all therizinosaurs and oviraptorosaurids(?) though.

[piltdown]

Jun 16, 2008 23:47:59 GMT therizinosaurus said:

My favorites are Therizinosaurus, Deinocheirus, Saurophaganax, Falcarius, Mononychus (Mononykus?), and Gigantoraptor. I like pretty much all therizinosaurs and oviraptorosaurids(?) though.

Hey cool, a fellow therizinosaurus fan Though I hope you like them feather-less, like I do ;D

[therizinosaurus]

Chickenraptor- I like the Dinosaurs of China therizinosaurus best, w/o feathers!

[[][][]cordylus[][][]]

Feathers give them personality that scales just can't give.

[sbell]

Jun 17, 2008 14:12:24 GMT [][][]cordylus[][][] said:

Feathers give them personality that scales just can't give.

Aahh! Don't start this again!!!!

[sbell]

Jun 17, 2008 13:30:13 GMT therizinosaurus said:

Chickenraptor- I like the Dinosaurs of China therizinosaurus best, w/o feathers!

I like that one too, but the head needs updating--it just seems wrong, like they didn't know exactly how to do it (which of course would have been true). Feathers, I could take or leave.

[piltdown]

The Kaiyodo Therizinosaurus also has a terrific pose The Dinosaurs of China Therizinosaurus is indeed nice, but as sbell mentions the head needs fixing--though sadly Safari seems to have cancelled the figure A therizinosaurus based on (or better yet copied from ;D ) the Chased by Dinosaurs episode "The Giant Claw" would be great

[sbell]

Jun 17, 2008 18:12:26 GMT piltdown said:

The Kaiyodo Therizinosaurus also has a terrific pose The Dinosaurs of China Therizinosaurus is indeed nice, but as sbell mentions the head needs fixing--though sadly Safari seems to have cancelled the figure A therizinosaurus based on (or better yet copied from ;D ) the Chased by Dinosaurs episode "The Giant Claw" would be great

I wondered if those aren't discontinued--I guess the Yangchuanosaurus just went higher up in my list. They can still be found on the Safari site, somewhere (possibly in the specials/discounts part).

And although some people may quibble with details, or exact depictions, I don't think anyone at this site would be anything but ecstatic at a company reproducing figures based on the Impossible Pictures shows (Walking with/Chased by/Prehistoric Park/Primeval). Really, someone should do that. Maybe incorporate some of the Discovery Channel shows, like Monsters we Met, Mega Beasts, Prehistoric America, Dinosaur Planet and When Dinosaurs Ruled America. And if they are really dedicated, pull out the NHK/Canada Film Board 'Miracle Planet'.

There, that line would have about 100 awesome figures (I know, decisions would have to be made about overlapping animals) extending from Ediacaran right up to late Pleistocene/subfossil animals.

[thagomizer]

Jun 17, 2008 17:33:43 GMT sbell said:

Jun 17, 2008 13:30:13 GMT therizinosaurus said:

Chickenraptor- I like the Dinosaurs of China therizinosaurus best, w/o feathers!

I like that one too, but the head needs updating--it just seems wrong, like they didn't know exactly how to do it (which of course would have been true). Feathers, I could take or leave.

Therizinosaurus is also one of my faves and that's one of my favorite Safari dinos... it's actually based exactly on an illustration from an early paper on Therizinosaurus, before anybody really knew what they were (segnosaur relatives/maniraptorans). It's grossly inaccurate (and should certainly have feathers!) but it's cool from an historical perspective.