anewdinosaureveryweek-blog

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Velociraptor - The speedy thief lizard

I know what people think when they hear velociraptor, “it’s those evil dinosaurs from Jurassic Park that eat people alive and fights t-rexs”. Well to those people I say just stop, your embarrassing yourself, it’s a work of fiction. Lots of people will believe what movies tell them, that mixed with animal behavior like in Jaws or the many 80’s movies with bugs that eat people, give people unnecessary fears, for Jurassic Park and it’s dinosaurs, the situation is a lot worse. Of course, dinosaurs are extinct, it’s A LOT harder to know what an animal looked like and even harder to understand its behavior when it’s been extinct for 71 million years. Michael Chrichton famous book was about the ethics of cloning extinct animals and its consequences, but even more so, it was about dinosaurs being awesome and dangerous. What I mean is that less was known about these animals when he wrote his book, so he needed to add his own creativity to create something people would read or else they would put the book down. A hell of a job he did too because now everyone is afraid of meat eating dinosaurs. Don’t get me wrong, some like t-rex, spinosaurus, and carnotaurus would still be terrifying, but there is a lot of misinformation about anything pertaining to these and other dinosaurs. The velociraptor has to be the most screwed over though.

To start with, velociraptors were about 1-2 feet tall and had feathers, they weren’t the taller than humans, dark grey-skinned dinosaurs that could leap 20 feet in the air and killed anything they felt like killing.Those ideas are just works of glorification by Jurassic Park and other media. Most of its family members too were hardly larger than people and looked a lot like birds, that’s why the scientists that discovered them called them raptors, after birds of prey. If anything, Velociraptors, if they were domesticated, could be an awesome pet to have around. The problem with that is that is that velociraptor claws would probably hurt a whole lot.

Raptors are known to have 2.5 inch long sickle-like claws on their second toes. That’s considerably smaller than the claw doctor grant had but it’s still large enough to cause some serious pain. I know I have been attacked by a rage induced chicken at least once in my life, thankfully, it didn’t have claws or teeth but I would be terrified to be attacked by something with the same hatred and did have those weapons it wasn’t holding back on. Okay, maybe keeping a pet like a velociraptor is a bad idea, after all, my bad Malcolm. 

Malcolm and Grant always worried about dinosaur behavior, Malcolm knew these animals would get out hand and kill everybody, from the start, grant knew velociraptors were incredibly agile and smart, hunting in packs, little did they know, actual velociraptors are only as dangerous as a pissed off badger, were always alone, and only slightly smarter than a 2 year old, just because it can actually survive. As for being an agile hunter, that’s not much of a stretch, scientists think that it was an accipitrid animal. That means its style of predation was one where it would pin it’s prey down, maybe hit it a few times,(stab it in this case) and begin eating even if the animal was still alive, a lot of birds do this. Velociraptor bones play a big role in this behavior, it’s feet resemble eagle’s to pin down prey, its arms, that had feathers, could be used to balance on top of a moving animal, and the fact that velociraptors had relatively weak jaws is more evidence they would need to use their body to hold prey instead of their mouth. 

You know, this kind of behavior doesn't just have to be present in velociraptors. I’m sure I’ve made it clear that, as I’ve grown up, I’ve imagined even bigger animals like T-Rex to act like birds. Waking up, twisting their head around rapidly, making a loud call like a rooster in the morning, then heading off. Later, they would track an animal and look at with head twisted to one side, the darting forward, hitting it with its feet, with wings flapping wildly, just like the chicken that attacked me. 

I’m sure everyone knows about the extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, but it just dawned on me what that implies, if dinosaurs went extinct how is it birds came to be? That’s easily explainable, either dinosaurs like Velociraptor et al. happened to survive the extinction, or they had produced even more birdlike creatures by the time the K-T extinction rolled around, which survived. Either way, some form of dinosaur relative had to survive in order to bring birds to life. It’s interesting to think even though the larger dinosaurs were a lot cooler looking and seemed to be the dominant species (like in many ecosystems), little dinosaurs like Velociraptor are what allowed dinosaurs to continue to live on and eventually take flight and end up as cute, loud, fluffy little animals that repeat what you tell them.

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Gallimimus-chicken mimic

Gallimimus was a very tall and slender animal with a beak. It would have been as tall as grown man at the hip (6 ft.) and as long as 26 ft, weighing a very light 400 pounds. Normally with those dimensions, an animal would look very big and heavy, but this dinosaur was the skinny, nerdy, sensitive guy from the Late Cretaceous that resembles Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory. It was discovered in August 1963 in the Gobi Desert (the Gobi is really great btw) and was named Gallimimus, which means “chicken mimic”, by Rinchen Barsbold, Halszka Osmólska, and Ewa Roniewicz. At first, it was thought to eat just small animals, sure it seems reasonable, raptors (prey birds) of today have no trouble catching lizards and small mammals, but it’s possible that Gallimimus was omnivorous, like the birds we see every day eating seeds and worms. a few scientists theorized Gallimimus liked the water since it is more plentiful in places know to be near water. It makes sense, with its long legs and neck it could reach into the water and pluck out fish or even filter feed. One scientist says that this is unlikely since it wouldn’t produce enough food to keep Gallimimus going

If you have ever seen a pigeon walking around, you know how dumb it looks just minding its own business moving its head back and forth. (You’ll notice that I can pretty much relate any dinosaur to any animal, or combination of animals, of today and I’m sorry if it gets boring or repetitive). I imagine that’s how Gallimimus walked because if such a tall creature was to act like a pigeon, it would make it seem less like an unrealistic dinosaur from Jurassic Park that is supposed to be alien. 

And that relates to this idea I’ve recently had. I love Jurassic Park, duh, but one thing that bothers me just a bit is that these animals are supposed to be faked and unrealistic so that people will see them as a cool new thing that is badass. When I was little I know that’s how I thought of them but now, I can (but not necessarily will) see them as just another group of animals that cool yes, but just animals. Dinosaurs are so alike creatures we already know, so in reality, what happened in Jurassic World would actually happen, people would at first flock to see the Dinosaurs but will realize that it’s just like going to any other zoo they could go to.

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Triceratops

Triceratops was a very fat looking herbivore of the cretaceous period, grew to about 25 to 29 feet long and 9.5 to 10 feet tall. I think most people know what this animal is and that's because of the movies and that sheer amount of research put into this animal. It was discovered in 1887 in Denver, Colorado so it's a pretty old find. Triceratops’ skull including the frill could be as long as one-third of its whole body. I have been holding off on doing this dinosaur because I wanted to make sure I did it justice so here you go.

All right! It's the beautiful triceratops! Beautiful because I mean just look! It has a huge skull with that big frill that I'm sure had some cool markings on it. The rest of its body is so large, it reminds me of an elephant skeleton.Triceratops, however, could weigh twice as much as an elephant, estimates put it anywhere from 6 to 12 tons (elephants weigh about 6 to 7 tons). Triceratops did live with other dinosaurs like leptoceratops, torosaurus, a few ornithopods, and pachycephalosaurus. Out of all of them, triceratops was the biggest one, thats why I love it, it could just walk around and mind its own business eating, sleeping, pooping, eating and sleeping all day and no other herbivores could really do anything to Triceratops if it wanted to. Well, except for T.Rex and whatever few dromaeosaurs were daring enough to team up and attack Triceratops. T.Rex teeth marks have actually been found on trike bones.

This is where the horns could come in handy, at least I think, scientists the horns and frill were for courtship and not fighting. That's laaaaame though fighting is a much better theory. Well, I might just be saying that because the dinosaurs I know and love, in my mind, all have something special and like to make up my own ideas. My opinion doesn’t change anything though so whatever. Okay, like I said before, the frill might have had colorings on it, that combined with the size of the frill could attract more females. Much like elephants of today, the size of the horns could help attract females the same way, orrr, more importantly, its theorized Trikes would lock horns and fight like rams or elk.  A study of the rates of skull lesions and bone reconstruction in Triceratops showed that Trikes were using its horns in combat and the frill was there for protection, as it contained fibroblasts, cells that could quickly redeposit bone. So, at least, fighting was one of the main functions of the horns.

A scientist by the name of Peter Dodson (may or may not have inspired a Jurassic Park character) estimated that when defending itself, a bull Trike could take down a T.Rex. That satisfies my nostalgia of dinosaur battles!

Kids will look at pictures of triceratops and think it's so cool because it has horns but now that I've grown up a little I can't help but examine this animal with a more keen eye. I look at its jaw and ask myself how it could have moved, I notice its horns are attached to its eye orbitals instead of just glued on to its head, so to speak, I notice its shoulder bones extend to a point in line with its eyes, almost above its ribs. All these things, observation, comparing, and logical thinking are what let us create a picture of Triceratops in our heads and allow kids to come to know this creature, I didn't understand it when I was little but I always ask “how do you know that scientists?” or “How do you know that about dinosaurs John Goodman? Have you ever seen one?”

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Acrocanthosaurus

So this dinosaur I just discovered a few days ago, I thought its name sounded cool but then I realized after reading about it that it is pretty badass looking. It belongs to a family of dinosaurs that I remember from my childhood. Acrocanthosaurus ( ak-ro-KANTH-uh-SAWR-us ) belongs to Carcharodontosauridae ( kar-KHAR-o-DON-to-SOR-uh-day ) a family that just sounds straight up menacing. Some families like Tyranisauridae or Dromaeosauridae were cool and all but I think Carcharodontosauridae deserves an award for that name alone.

The spines on its back that it was named for, acro meaning ‘high’ and cantha meaning ‘spine’. From its bones, scientists were a bit confused on how exactly to classify it for a while, first, it was thought to be an Allosaur for 6 years, then it was called a Megalosaur, later it was said to be a Spinosaur until the 1980′s because of its resemblance. That’s how it is a lot of the time, scientists find single bones that completely change a dinosaurs identity.

The only other theropods I know that have spines that look close to this are the Spinosaurs. Its spines lead scientists to believe that muscle attached to here would help keep its tail straight. Not just that, though, the spines might have offered a place to store fat or to aid in cooling off. The spines along with the ridges above its eyes give it a look like, “you mess with me you’re gonna have a bad day bud”. Acrocanthosaurus was 38 feet long and is estimated to have weighed upwards of 7 tons. This is a big creature, not the amongst the very largest but it comes close enough to be on the radar of things you really need to avoid. I believe, if anything, its size should be an advantage because it meant it was agiler. Even its skull is relatively small, so it could lunge towards its prey and deliver quick bites. Sadly, its arms, even though they look larger and stronger than other large theropods’, actually kind of sucked at doing things. Its arms could only move about 50 degrees up and towards its chest, they might as well be as useless as T-rex arms. In general, I really like this dinosaur, (I say that a lot) its spines give it scary appearance, the crest over its eyes, its slender body, tell you straight up not to mess with it.

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Diplodocus

Diplodocus was for a time the longest dinosaur ever until a few other dinosaurs were discovered. It lived in western North America between 154 and 152 million years ago (end of Jurassic). In west North America at this time, the area was dominated by sauropods, which might have heard about before. Apatosaurus, Barosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Camarasaurus all lived alongside Diplodocus. Like all of these dinosaurs, Diplodocus was an incredibly large animal, Diplodocus carnegii, the species with one of the most complete skeletons in the world, measured 82 feet and was estimated to be about 10-16 metric tons. Another species, Diplodocus hallorum, was estimated to be even bigger at upwards of 171 feet and 113 tonnes. The thing is, those are just estimates from a few tail bones and one of those bones was even found to be from a different dinosaur altogether, so it might be, dare I say, inaccurate

Diplodocus is actually a weird name, it means something like “double beam”. What does that mean? Well it is in reference to a special type of bone only found on this dinosaur so-called “chevron bones”. They are those bones under the tail that form a sort suspension bridge cable system. Chevron bones would have been connected by strong muscle that could lift and move the tail in order to keep balance. Seriously, this animal was so large it actually had to develop a skeleton that used structures that work the same as human bridges. 

Something else about its skeleton is its weird looking foot, besides resembling an elephant’s foot in terms of shape and finger location, it had one, larger than usual claw on its thumb. This bone hasn’t been proven to do anything useful, the first and most obvious theory is defense. It think Diplodocus might have had a hard time lifting its body and slashing with its hand, it was too heavy. Besides, a much better weapon is its tail. 

You can see, Diplodocus’ tail was very long and ended a very thin tip. As explained in an article titled Did dinosaurs break the sound barrier? scientists ran simulations using data from sauropod dinosaurs and discovered that the tip of a diplodocus’ and other sauropods’ tails could be moved at 750 miles per hour. With that speed and low surface area, the tail’s movement would have created a sonic boom that could have easily hurt anything that was trying to attack the diplodocus. That reminds me of this one movie, which is actually a series apparently, where a young Allosaurus tried attacking a baby sauropod. What he didn’t realize was that its mother was right there and she didn't hesitate to slap his face. He basically ends up with a broken jaw (which is his name) That was really funny to me even though its terrible for that to happen.

Okay, enough of that. Diplodocus, if you haven’t noticed was an extremely large animal, it likely didn’t even need to protect itself, its size alone was enough. Because of its size, it must have eaten a ton of food daily just to live, and Diplodocus grew very quickly not stopping when it reached adulthood. So how did it get so much food to eat? Well, scientists don’t know for sure but its teeth could have helped. The way Diplodocus’ teeth were worn down suggests that it ate by stripping leaves, almost like a giraffe does with its tongue. By stripping leaves, Diplodocus could get a lot more food per bite than most dinosaurs, even taking every single leaf of several branches at once. This could explain how Diplodocus was able to eat so much, take a few bites of one tree, then the next, then the next, and very efficiently.

Finally, Diplodocus to me is an incredible animal, its size pushes the limits of how large an animal can be. Even when I think of video games that boast having alien life with huge animals, I think, well our own planet at one time had these huge animals that are just as cool, their called Dinosaurs.

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Dilophosaurus

Dilophosaurus is an all time favorite dinosaur of mine because of Jurassic Park as well as When Dinosaurs Roamed America which is a film I posted about a while ago. Those two movies made Dilophosaurus out to be a skinny-looking, ferocious lizard on two legs. It actually was one of the largest and deadliest Dinosaurs of its time, about 193 million years ago. It measured about 20 feet and its head was held at just about the same height as a man. The Dilophosaurus in Jurassic park was a lot smaller but it made up for it, more on that later.

Dilophosaurus is a clear carnivore, 3 toed feet (technically 4 but that’s just the dew claw) a theropod’s pelvis, and small arms. Most important, though, was the big double crest above its head that measured a few inches. It’s not clear what the crest was for but the most obvious theory is that it used it for communicating how strong and healthy the individual was, that also means that probably only males had the crests. If the crest was brightly colored and/or colored in a specific way, then the Dilophosaur would have it easier finding a mate.

Now, Dilophosaurus had relatively weak teeth and a weak jaw when compared to other dinosaurs. Also, it has been suggested that this dinosaur could be semi-aquatic because it resembles the Spinosaur family. This is all important for this next point. Dilophosaurus had this really weird notch in its mouth at the near tip under the nose cavity that resembles a cleft pallet. It's not known what this feature was useful for, but I believe that the notch could aid in catching fish. Fish would offer an abundant food source and this food doesn’t need a lot of muscle power to be hunted and eaten. The notch in its mouth would work as an easy way to hold slippery fish that are trying to shake free.

Lastly, above is a picture from Jurassic Park where the Dilophosaur uses its poison spit to blind and kill Denis Nedry. (He had it coming) That spit, of course, is entirely fictitious along with the giant frill. So why have it? For one it makes for a cool story, a dinosaur able to spray you and render you senseless while devouring your insides. Most importantly though it's because when Michael Crichton wrote his book, it was implied that the Dinosaurs in the Park were not exact clones, their DNA had been tampered with. This tampering, as Michael Crichton predicts, would lead to unpredictable consequences. In the case of the Dilophosaurus, the consequence was a frill and a version of the poison that the Velociraptors were supposed to utilize. (I'll talk about that in a later post)

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Ankylosaurus-walking tank

Ankylosaurus, yep. This dinosaur always comes up when I think, hmm what dinosaur should I do next for my blog? For some reason, I never did it, but here it is! Ankylosaurus ( an-kie-loh-sore-us ) lived at the very end of the reign of the dinosaurs, about 68-66 million years ago. The first thing you might notice is its spikes and armor on its back and the club at the end of its tail. Only one actual fossil of the tail club has been found and it measures about 18 inches. Its genus name means “fused lizard” and its species name, magniventris, means “great belly”. Ankylosaurus is like a very dull man at first, but if you get in his space, he will definitly get angry and smash your face in. I mean, you try caring around all that armor, you also will probably feel a little disgruntled if you have to carry all that weight your whole life.

The above is a reconstructed skeleton using information from several Ankylosaur-like dinosaurs. Ankylosaurs had very strong humerus and femur bones in order to be able to walk close to the ground. That is the case with another animal, Glyptodon, a relative of the armadillo that also had a tail club and a bone “helmet” like Ankylosaurus. By having their body close to the ground, these two animals could hug the ground and block with their armor when a predator came by and tried eating them. This is something that I guess the ankylosaur from Jurassic world forgot to do.

But that is a hyper aggressive animal it is fighting, in the real world, if a T-rex tried eating it, Ankylosaur is adapted to defend itself against threats it knows, its tail club could be a very dangerous weapon. If an Ankylosaur really tried, it could swing its tail very fast. Some dinosaurs, namely Apatosaurus and Diplodocus, were able to whip their tails faster than the speed of sound (only the very tip) as explained in the article Did Dinosaurs Break the Sound Barrier? If they could do it, then why couldn’t ankylosaur swing its tail hard enough to knock something out? This is really one of the only theories for the use of the club I know of.

In general, I doubt any animal would like to mess with Ankylosaurus, besides, why would they, with all the bony spikes on its body, they would have to flip over to eat it and even then, it’s probably just a bunch of gristle, it is a herbivore after all. Ankylosaurus is just a Dino that a predator would rather leave alone, unless its an Indominus Rex.

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Oviraptor

Timeline: ~75mya

Bone Location: Mongolia

Length: ~2 meters

Weight: unknown

Jurassic Park: Nope

Oviraptor (Oh-vee-rap-tor) was a really bird-like dinosaur that appeared very late in relation to all the other dinosaurs. Its name was given to it by the president of the expedition that discovered because it was the first time anyone had ever seen a dinosaur fossilized while sitting on top of a nest, his theory was that obviously, if the animal hung out regularly around eggs, Oviraptor ate a lot of egg. So, he gave it the name Oviraptor which means ‘egg thief’, ovi- egg and raptor- thief. Later, after more Oviraptor fossils, eggs, and embryos were discovered, (yes, fossilized embryos of dinosaurs have been studied) it turns out that Oviraptors just knew how to take care of their kids. Reading that was a “huh, how bout that” moment for me because I as well believed Oviraptor was a straight ovivore.

Only partial remains of Oviraptor have been found so scientists rely on the very similar dino, Citipati, which is a slightly bigger animal. I didn’t know that earlier and so the name implied to me that it was a smaller dinosaur that wasn’t so terrible (that's very wrong). Anyway, Citipati and Oviraptor’s bones resemble each other heavily and so a lot of the images of oviraptor on the internet are out of guesses made by comparing their bones. If you were to search for pictures of the family Oviraptoridae, I'm betting your first instinct is to say “more like a six-foot tall turkey” like the kid from Jurassic park.

Who even let him be there at the dig site? Anyway, yeah Oviraptors are a lot like birds, more so than raptors, I think. For one, they had feathers, they had rib cages like birds’, they had beaks and crests, and lastly, Oviraptors took care of their nests. I'll even go as far to give an example of bird that comes to my mind immediately when looking at Oviraptors, the cassowary.

Just look at that thing, it’ll give you nightmares, and cassowaries actually can grow to 6 feet; show that kid a video of a cassowary attacking a person and trust me, he’ll be scared. The point is, Oviraptors have no fear of people, less than cassowaries, they have bigger beaks and bigger claws. If you are scared of large birds, oh man will you be running and screaming when you disturb an Oviraptor’s nest.

Parula.deviantart.com

In all seriousness, Oviraptor and cousin species play an important part role in the substantial evidence that leads scientists to believe are birds of today are a descendant of dinosaurs. Also, the embryos of Oviraptor are among the few in the world, with those embryos it was discovered that in the egg, Oviraptor’s jawbones are unfused, but would fuse later in life, much like some birds of today.

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Yehuecauhceratops

Timeline: 74-72 mya

Bone Location: Northern Coahuila, Mexico

Length: ~3 meters

Weight: estimated: 2000-4000 lbs

Jurassic Park: Nope

I was recently informed that this creature was discovered not that long ago and so I decided to make this post about it because it looked interesting and reminded me of an important fact that i’ll talk about later. Yehuecauhceratops ( yeh-WE-cow-SEH-ruh-tops ) was named partially in Nahuatl because of where it was found, Mexico. There have only ever been 4 family members of Ceratopsidae found in Mexico, and this was only the second dinosaur named in 2017. Its bones were discovered in 2007-2010 but not named until late January of this year. Nearly 60% of its skeleton was found which is really good considering many species are only known because of a skull or teeth or hell, just some arms sticking out of the ground.

Anyway, you can tell right away, this dinosaur really clearly resembles a dinosaur many already know, the Triceratops! ya! The main difference is that the Trike was a lot longer and heavier. This is just a little baby ceratopsian with horns even smaller than a rhino’s. That makes me feel bad for it, Triceratops could defend itself because of its larger horns, but Yehuecauhceratops was just a lot wimpier, a pack of velociraptors would much rather eat this chubby lizard than a huge Trike. That’s what he gets for trying to watch his weight I guess huh? 

There are SO many different species of dinosaur who lose their identity because of their more well-known cousins; the type species of the family they belong in. It’s not just dinosaurs, though, for example, when I say rhino you probably don’t immediately think of one of the six species: Black, White, Sumatran, Javan, or Indian, you just think of what a generic rhino looks like. It’s the same case with dinosaurs: if an uninitiated person sees a picture of what looks like a trike, or looks like a stegosaurus, or T-rex, then they say “oh yeah that's just a triceratops, etc.” They don’t realize that there are so many different kinds of Raptors, or Apatosaurs, or the “ones with the big heads”.

A separate reason for writing about Yehuecauhceratops was where he was discovered, Mexico! Not a lot of dinosaurs are discovered here and I think that’s because of this:

There is a lot here but just focus on the ring of black dotted lines. This is “gravity map” (it is too complicated to explain) looking at the top of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. To put it simply: evidence like this shows that this whole area (180km across) is actually one huge meteorite crater that might have killed off all the dinosaurs. That is why Mexico is special, it could be the sight of the main cause of the K-T extinction. This, in turn, could explain why there aren’t many dino fossils in Mexico, all the dinosaurs were instantly vaporized by the 2700 degree explosion that occurred just outside their forest.

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I wonder what dinosaur meat tastes like, with maybe a little barbecue?

Jesus Tejeda

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Iguanodon

Timeline: 139-138 mya

Bone Locations:  Antartica, North Africa, Mongolia and Europe

Length: 20-30 ft.

Weight: 9 ft at hips

Jurassic Park: Yes (book)

Oddly enough, Iguanodon doesn’t mean “like an iguana”, but “iguana teeth”, for its upper jaw teeth that resemble an iguana’s for its chisel-like appearance. It makes sense because an Iguanodon looks nothing like an Iguana. 

Iguanodon was actually the second dinosaur to ever be discovered, second to Megalosaurus. I always remember Iguanodon when thinking of dinosaurs, mostly because of the movie Dinosaur (2000) where the main dino is an Iguanodon. I remember watching this movie and it teaching me two things: Carnotaurs are assholes and Iguanodons are the best herbivore dinosaurs ever. Why is that? Well, not only did they basically lead the entire herd (that included several different species) but they acted like people, one who was an asshole, the protagonist, (who you were meant to like) and his girlfriend. This movie portrayed them in such a likable manner that I can only picture them acting like us. Anyway, for the most part, Iguanodon was quadrupedal but it might have sometimes reached into higher tries and used its larger than usual hands to grasp leaves. Actually, in the 1900′s some scientists thought that it could have used its tail as a third leg almost. Later, they realized the tail would have to be broken to do that. No kangarooing for Iguanodon. One of the distinguishing features of the Iguanodon is its large claw that looks almost like it’s giving you a thumbs up.

It’s not known for sure for what the extra large claw was for. Some theories say that it would have been used to strip leaves off tree branches or cut open fruits. That’s cool, but a better theory is that it could have used its thumb to slice at an attacker’s throat and poisoned it. Okay, in all likelihood, it probably couldn’t poison anything, there really isn’t any evidence on how it would store venom. As for using it as a weapon, I admit would be pretty cool, but it’s also unlikely. As described in David B. Norman’s book On the ornithischian dinosaur Iguanodon bernissartensis of Bernissart, Iguanodon’s arms were very strong, its wrists were relatively immobile, its 3 large fingers were grouped together, and finally, its phalanges were almost like hooves. What does that mean? It means that its hands were built for bearing weight and walking on; Iguanodon therefore probably didn’t use its claws for defense. That, and also, by the time it raised its arms to defend itself, it probably would already be killed.

It seems all the cool ideas of Dinosaurs always get shot down right when they get good, hell even the fruit idea, as far as I understand, isn’t likely, fruits of the time were not that large so it would be difficult for it to crack open a tiny fruit with such large claws. If there were larger fruits, say like watermelon, then it would make sense, Iguanodon could just stab it and eat it off its claw like a fork. Overall, Iguanodon is a very simple kind of dinosaur, preferring to mind his own business and hang out with his friends and not bother anyone, except if you try messing with his girl, then he’ll cut you.

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Carnotaurus

Timeline: ~72-70 million years ago

Bone Location: Argentina

Height: ~4m (13.12ft) 

Length: ~9m (29.52ft) 

Weight: 2 tons

Jurassic Park: Yes (book)

Just look at that animal! It looks so savage; if you didn’t already assume that most theropod dinosaurs are willing to attack and tear apart any animal that looks tasty, this dino’ face should tell you all you need to know. Although it's not the biggest or deadliest dinosaur of its time, (which included T-rex) I like to think of Carnotaurus as the kid who got picked on a lot when he was young and when he grew up, he was intent on showing everyone that he was just as tough as any other dinosaur of his time, even going so far as to change his appearance. Anyway, Carnotaurus’ name comes from the latin carno- meaning meat or flesh and -taurus meaning bull, Carnotaurus, therefore means ‘meat-eating bull’. Can you guess why? It's because when the skull of Carnotaurus was found, the first thing scientists noticed were the 15 cm (5.9 in.) long horns above its eye sockets, this gave it the bull-like face. 

The head overall was smaller in relation to its body than other theropods’ skulls. As explained in Fernando E. Nova’s book The Age of Dinosaurs in South America, the way its neck and head bones were arranged means Carnotaurus had more muscular neck than other theropods. Its cervical column (neck vertebrae) was very rigid and provided a pivot point. These three things, small head, muscular neck, and a rigid neck together suggest that Carnotaurus could participate in head bashing battles in order to fight for territory or food, much the same way Pachycephalosaurs engaged in fighting, by standing off to each other’s side and striking with their heads. Reading about this is very exciting, at least for me, because as far as my knowledge goes, theropods obviously had to fight each other all the time, except, while reading about this, I am painted a much clearer picture of how it went down.

Another thing you may have noticed about Carnotarus is its incredibly short arms which make that particular part of its body look really wimpy, these arms are even shorter than human arms and, yes, even T-rex arms, which we all know are TINY compared to the rest of the dino’s body. They are a vestigial part of the dino, completely useless. Like I said before, Carnosaurus used to be picked on and that's probably because of its tiny arms, so then it grew out its horns in order to show other dinosaurs it means business. In all seriousness, though, Carnotaurus is a mean looking animal, especially when it's given a dark background and red skin:

I would just like to add one more thing about Carnotaurus, in the novel, Jurassic Park, a pair of Carnos that live on the island of Isla Sorna are seen stalking the characters from afar, blending into their background. Blending in due to having the same coloring as your surroundings doesn’t seem so amazing, but what about camouflaging? Camouflaging by actually changing the colors and patterns of your skin to fit into any surroundings. The same thing happens in the movie Jurassic World when the new dinosaur surprises containment personnel by camouflaging into the trees. It made me so happy to know that such a look over occurrence could make it into the big screen, even though it wasn’t a Carnotaurus doing the camouflaging.

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Parasaurolophus

Timeline: ~76.5-74.5 million years ago (Late Cretaceous)

Bone Location: Alberta, Utah, New Mexico

Length: ~9.5 m (31 ft.)

Height: ~3.3 m (11.8 ft)

Weight: ~2.5 tons

Jurassic Park: Yes

Parasaurolophus ( par-ah-SAWR-OL-uh-fus ) was a type of ornithopod dinosaur, the Ornithopoda sub-order includes Hadrosauridae, Hypsilophodontidae, and Iguanodontidae. Those actually happen to be some of my favorite families of dinosaurs because they are all actually pretty different from what some may call ‘regular plant-eaters’. Ornithopoda includes dinosaur families that all have some sort of crests on their head and duck-looking beaks. From its bones, we know that its forelimbs and thighbones are actually relatively shorter and stronger for a hadrosaurid, this leads scientists to believe that it was possible that Parasaurolophus could move on either 2 legs, or 4. Parasaurolophus had about 30 rows of teeth, which were being replaced constantly, almost like a shark’s teeth. Instead of eating meat, though, Parasaurolophus ate plants. The fact it could stand up on its hind legs is an evolutionary advantage, it wasn’t limited to plants that only grew on the ground, it could eat plants that Ceratopsians and Pachycephalosaurs couldn’t, possibly even reach high up into trees if it really tried. Now, Parasaurolophus’ crest has been subject to a lot of different theories, one by Alfred Sherwood Romer in 1933 suggested that it could have been used as a snorkel or gas tank when submerged under water. Eventually, that idea was replaced by the much more popular theory: Parasaurs used their crests as a resonating chamber to create low-frequency sounds to communicate. 

This is a little saddening because it would've been great to see a herd of parasaurolophus take a break and go swimming every once in a while, maybe even graze a little and bring up food from the bottom of a river and start munching. Not only that, but this also seems like an evolutionary advantage, to not be limited to plants growing on the ground. 

Anyway, besides the sound-making, Parasaurs might have used their crests for mating purposes, in a paper by James A. Hopsin published by Cambridge University Press, it is stated, 

“The following hypothesis is presented: cranial crests, whether hollow or solid, served as visual signal structures, and hollow lambeosaur crests were also vocal resonators; all crests promoted successful matings within species, i.e., they served as premating genetic isolating mechanisms.” 

The last part “they served as premating genetic isolating mechanisms” means that the difference between species crests is what aided Hadrosaurs (and therefore Parasaurs) in mating with just their species. That is backed up by the fact that, in Hadrosaurs, facial features were well developed, different species had different variations of crests, and crest variation was sexually dimorphic. The fact that facial features were well developed is evidence that their DNA was probably not being mutated as much i.e. species most likely didn’t intermingle when it came to mating.

Sure, it would've been fun to go river dinosaur spotting for Parasaurolophus back in that time period, but the fact that dinosaurs might have had as complex mating rules as some animals of today is still a very intriguing thought. In a way, this is even better.

Sources:

www.prehistoric-wildlife.com, Darren Pepper. "Parasaurolophus." Parasaurolophus. www.prehistoric-wildlife.com, n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2017.

"Introduction to Ornithopoda." Introduction to the Ornithopoda. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2017. 

Switek, Brian. "Dinosaurian Snorkels, Air Tanks and Tubas." Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 15 Jan. 2017. 

Hopson, James A. "The evolution of cranial display structures in hadrosaurian dinosaurs." Paleobiology 1.01 (1975): 21-43. Web. 13 Jan. 2017. <https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/paleobiology/article/div-classtitlethe-evolution-of-cranial-display-structures-in-hadrosaurian-dinosaursdiv/BA5F0809133845325E397883BD2CB17E> 

Sullivan, Robert M., and Thomas E. Williamson. A New Skull of Parasaurolophus (Dinosauridae: Hadrosauridae) From the Kirkland Formation of New Mexico and a Revision of the Genus. New Mexico: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, 1999. Print. 

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Therizinosaurus

Timeline: ~72-83 million years ago

Location: Mongolia, N. China, W. North America

Length: ~33 ft (10 m)

Height: ~15 ft (4.5 m)

Weight: ~1 ton

Jurassic Park: No

Therizinosaurus gets its name from its enormous claws, therizo- ‘to reap’, as in how a farmer might farm wheat with a scythe, so Therizinosaurus means ‘scythe lizard’. It would stalk its prey and when the time was right, it would jump out and slice violently at its prey, leaving it to bleed out while its organs hang out of it on the floor. I’m just kidding, this dinosaur wouldn’t do that, it’s really nice, it would much better like to leave every other dinosaur alone and munch on some salad; it’s the only vegetarian theropod known and that's a great fact because its claws are the largest known in the entire animal kingdom. Anyway, we only know this dinosaur from a few bones: forelimbs, claws, hind legs, and pelvic bones. Scientists have had to make assumptions using the bones of its relatives Erlikosaurus and Alxasaurus. The latter being the most complete fossil skeleton in Asia. This is how the majority of the information about the animal was discovered. For instance, not one skull of Therizinosaurus has been found but by looking at its relatives’ skulls, scientists can infer what it could’ve looked like.

Alxasaurus elesitaiensis 

Therizinosaurus cheloniformis 

If one were to consider Therizinosaur’s relatives ‘normal’, which they most likely are not, then Therizinosaurs can be considered the bigger, meaner, lazier one of the family. That is because its pelvic bones were a lot wider than its relatives’and it had a pubis that was shifted backward, presumably, to make room for its larger than usual stomach. Much like the extinct giant ground sloth, Therizinosaurus most likely had to squat on its hind legs and raise its upper body to reach leaves, except this has to be the weirdest looking ground sloth to exist, almost as if the sloth got molded together with a giraffe, an eagle, and a baryonyx to create this thing. Members of the Therizinosauridae family might have once been able to hunt and kill, but later, it adapted to a vegan lifestyle. Overall, Therizinosaurus was a very odd creature, existing in a weird location between lizard and bird. Most dinosaurs choose to be more reptilian and others, more avian. Therizinosaurus is really confused about which one it wants to be, on one hand, it has feathers, four-toed feet, and beak. On the other hand, it had large arms and legs, a long neck a wide body, and very different pelvic bones than other dinosaurs. So, Therizinosaurus is a very weird creature, and that’s exactly how it was meant to look, and doesn’t care what others think of it.

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Pachycephalosaurus

Timeline: 70-65 million years ago

Location: USA

Length: 15 ft (4.5 m)

Height: 17.5 ft (4.3 m)

Weight: 1 ton

Jurassic Park: Yes

Pachycephalosaurus [ pak-ee-SEF-uh-lo-SAWR-us ] is most easily recognizable by, well, its huge skull. That’s what its name means: pachys- “thick” and cephalo- “head”. It is literally the “thick-headed lizard”. Its head is actually the main reason we know about it, although skeleton fragments have been discovered since 1850, the largest fossil of Pachycephalosaurus was found in 1943 in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana (god bless Montana)

You might have noticed that Pachycephalosaurus’ skull has small blunt spikes growing out of it. That, I think, is the coolest part of the dino and its entire family (Pachycephalosauria), just look at it! This is the closest animal to look like a dragon that I have ever seen, well actually that would be its cousin, Stygimoloch which had large spikes on its head. Actually, Jack Horner, one of the leading paleontologists in the world, believes Stigimoloch is simply the juvenile version of Pachycephalosaurus, so....they’re the same thing...so it was pointless to mention....great....anyway, back to Mr. Pachy. Pachycephalosaurus had a short snout and tiny teeth, most likely a herbivore, although, it might have had trouble eating tougher plants, so it’s possible it could have munched on the occasional bug sandwich here and there. 

Pachycephalosaurus is often depicted in movies such as The Lost World: Jurassic Park as being able to charge with its head lowered at a target and striking it with great force, much like a ram would do today.

I have recently learned that yes, they might have used their heads for fighting, but not the way you would immediately imagine. In a paper written by Eric Snively and Jessica M. Theodor in the online Journal PLOS (see below) it is mentioned that Pachycephalosaurus might not have been able to fight the way many think. Think about a punch, in order to punch something with your fist without hurting it in the process, it has to be held straight, or you’ll break your wrist. Its the same with the Pachy, You see, Pachycephalosaurus’ neck was either S or U-shaped, which means it probably couldn’t straighten out its body enough to strike something at full speed and not get hurt. It should also be noted that not a lot damage marks have been found on the animal’s skull, or at least, none that prove that pachys rammed into each other like depicted. That is a bit of a shame, but like I said, it might still have been able to fight in the same way giraffes in the savanna fight, by standing near each other and banging their heads into the other’s side till one backs down. I happen to really like this dinosaur, for one, I remember it from when I was a kid, it was one of the first dinos whose name I learned. Later I would go on to see it in Jurassic Park and think, wait, I own this dinosaur, I have this exact dino in my room, right now! It’s not one of my favorite dinosaurs, but it sure is one of the animals I remember when thinking of dinosaurs. Next post, I will make sure to bring a dinosaur not even I have heard of.

http://scienceviews.com/dinosaurs/pachycephalosaurus.html

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0021422

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I recently switched as well, Sheldon!