Dinosaurs

[KennyPowers]

What if those things were still flying around... And T-Rex's eating people... That would be nuts for real.

[KennyPowers]

I'm bumping this cause I want more dinosaur talk.



I am going to try and join a dinosaur message board if you guys won't talk more about dinosaurs.

[Axe]

The one famous dinosaur that still exists

[Long Duck Dong]

What confuses me is that I've always been told pterosaurs are reptiles, not dinosaurs or birds. But dinosaurs are still considered reptiles right and not their own seperate vertebrate group? So why can't pterosaurs be considered dinosaurs too?

[PANTHALASSA]

What confuses me is that I've always been told pterosaurs are reptiles, not dinosaurs or birds. But dinosaurs are still considered reptiles right and not their own seperate vertebrate group? So why can't pterosaurs be considered dinosaurs too?

I don't know the paleological answer to this question, but on a logical level, all dinosaurs can be reptiles, that doesn't mean all reptiles are dinosaurs.

Crocodiles are reptiles. They lived among dinosaurs. They aren't dinosaurs.

Perhaps this applies to pterosaurs.

[KennyPowers]

Do you know the difference in their intelligence?

Like, if Peterodactyl swooped down and clawed the T-Rex blind, then it should easily win if it's smart enough in it's tactic.

Don't T-Rex's have little brains?

That bird reptile thing is huge.

[Long Duck Dong]

I don't know the paleological answer to this question, but on a logical level, all dinosaurs can be reptiles, that doesn't mean all reptiles are dinosaurs.

Crocodiles are reptiles. They lived among dinosaurs. They aren't dinosaurs.

Perhaps this applies to pterosaurs.

True but you'd think they'd be considered dinosaurs, as there are no other examples of flying reptiles either today or in the past I believe. There were flying non-avian dinosaurs and the birds they evolved into.

[PANTHALASSA]

Do you know the difference in their intelligence?

Like, if Peterodactyl swooped down and clawed the T-Rex blind, then it should easily win if it's smart enough in it's tactic.

Don't T-Rex's have little brains?

That bird reptile thing is huge.

Reptiles are ectothermic (cold blooded) and therefore have generally less brain complexity as a result.

A reptile wouldnt “think” to do something for abstract reasons, it would just act on its instincts. Individuals with stronger instincts to do something useful would survive, those with instincts to do something counter productive would die. Over time this would shape the instincts of the species as a whole.

[Long Duck Dong]

It also seems hard for me to believe that not a single example of dinosaurs survived past the K-T extinction more than a few thousand years at the most. Birds lived on but they had evolved from dinosaurs long before the K-T event. Dinosaurs just didn't become birds overnight. So Birds, Fish, Reptiles, Amphibians and mammals all survived the event but ALL dinosaurs, the dominant species on the planet, were wiped out down to a one? It's almost as if aliens came down and visited the Earth then decided to wipe out all dinosaurs during a vunerable point so mammals could get a jump on becoming the dominant species. Maybe realizing mammals were less threatening to them or better for the planet or something.

Every single dinosaur wiped out immediately. Not even a small burrowing one could find a way to eek out an existence for a few million years? Seems unbelievable.

[PANTHALASSA]

It also seems hard for me to believe that not a single example of dinosaurs survived past the K-T extinction more than a few thousand years at the most. Birds lived on but they had evolved from dinosaurs long before the K-T event. Dinosaurs just didn't become birds overnight. So Birds, Fish, Reptiles, Amphibians and mammals all survived the event but ALL dinosaurs, the dominant species on the planet, were wiped out down to a one? It's almost as if aliens came down and visited the Earth then decided to wipe out all dinosaurs during a vunerable point so mammals could get a jump on becoming the dominant species. Maybe realizing mammals were less threatening to them or better for the planet or something.

Every single dinosaur wiped out immediately. Not even a small burrowing one could find a way to eek out an existence for a few million years? Seems unbelievable.

I agree it’s strange, have often wondered about it myself.

Best guess I can come up with is that whatever it was about their physiognomy that made them specifically dinosaurs and not other kinds of birds or reptiles or whatever, is what happened to make them particularly vulnerable to whatever extinction event that happened.

Either that or our understanding and reconstruction of the fossil record is flawed, which is also high probable.


These are the kinds of questions I would advise you to direct to bladefd.

Hes a bit of a Renaissance Man.

[baudkarma]

The mother****ing pterodactyl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHpD...has_verified=1

[Long Duck Dong]

I agree it’s strange, have often wondered about it myself.

Best guess I can come up with is that whatever it was about their physiognomy that made them specifically dinosaurs and not other kinds of birds or reptiles or whatever, is what happened to make them particularly vulnerable to whatever extinction event that happened.

It's just too puzzling that EVERY dinosaur disappeared almost immediately. While the other classes of veterbrates survived, and at least some members of most animal orders survived. Terrestrial plants and trees took that extinction event fairly well too, at least compared to animals, so you'd think a few small herbivore or omnivore dinosaurs would be able to squeak out an existence.

Take a look at the Troodon. It was not only an extremely adaptable species, it was likely the most intelligent animal on the planet at the time, with southern species as intelligent as modern raptors but the Alaskan species were larger and had larger brains. They might have been as intelligent as a pig. There were no ice caps during this time but Alaska was situated higher up on the Earth than now, and these animals dealt with temps as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit and 4 months of darkness unless they migrated. It appears they staged out their clutches of eggs possibly being able to breed year around, had 2 parents caring for their young, were omnivores, were bipedal of course, had long arms and digits. It was also thriving right up to the K-T event. It appears almost as if this highly adaptable, intelligent species was set to take over the Earth long before apes came along.



If aliens are keeping an eye on the Earth, and thought dinosaurs were a threat to them or to the planet in the future, maybe they stepped in at a time when all animals were vunerable and wiped them out giving mammals a chance to take over. The K-T Event would do most of the work, they'd just need to clean up a little.

[Patrick Chewing]

[Axe]

It's just too puzzling that EVERY dinosaur disappeared almost immediately. While the other classes of veterbrates survived, and at least some members of most animal orders survived. Terrestrial plants and trees took that extinction event fairly well too, at least compared to animals, so you'd think a few small herbivore or omnivore dinosaurs would be able to squeak out an existence.

Take a look at the Troodon. It was not only an extremely adaptable species, it was likely the most intelligent animal on the planet at the time, with southern species as intelligent as modern raptors but the Alaskan species were larger and had larger brains. They might have been as intelligent as a pig. There were no ice caps during this time but Alaska was situated higher up on the Earth than now, and these animals dealt with temps as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit and 4 months of darkness unless they migrated. It appears they staged out their clutches of eggs possibly being able to breed year around, had 2 parents caring for their young, were omnivores, were bipedal of course, had long arms and digits. It was also thriving right up to the K-T event. It appears almost as if this highly adaptable, intelligent species was set to take over the Earth long before apes came along.



If aliens are keeping an eye on the Earth, and thought dinosaurs were a threat to them or to the planet in the future, maybe they stepped in at a time when all animals were vunerable and wiped them out giving mammals a chance to take over. The K-T Event would do most of the work, they'd just need to clean up a little.

Interesting.

[Stanley Kobrick]

i always found it fascinating how these massive carnivore creatures were able to survive and be predators day in and day out. think about how much meat the t-rex must have had to consume/metabolize to engage such speed and velocity with each hunt? it probably hunted all day, one prey after the next without hesitation. i'm assuming it rested very often as well, perhaps like a lion/cat