paleontology

[plush fossil]

To carry presents

[magic jacinth]

Thoughtful of them honestly

Anyone else kinda hesitant to get mark wittons and david hones book on spino that came out this year. (Both two of my favorite paleontologists) But buying a book on spino in 2025 seems.

[charred hearth]

torosaurus found dead after messing up cobblestone generator

[queen oar]

@bright veldt Scanova, I have a question for you

Find actual Tyrannosaurus juveniles

OR

Be sent back in time, and get stuck in the Pleistocene,

Which would you choose?

[bright veldt]

One means death

[tough parcel]

You're right, you should do the Pleistocene one

[queen oar]

It's a simple question

[charred hearth]

has anyone been killed for a paleontological discovery or to prevent one from happening or not yet?

[queen oar]

I mean, depends on what you are counting, there's that one Miner that got crushed by a Hadrosaur footprint

[charred hearth]

the hadrosaur : " last stomp, let it haunt "

[winter marsh]

get sent back in time and be surrounded by Tyrannosaurus juveniles

[queen oar]

It's open to interpretation 😏 ( Didn't say they have to alive or dead, did I? )

[winter marsh]

I win

I could easily beat like 8 juvenile Tyrannosaurus. Just give me an RPG and a 12 gauge

and maybe like 3 frag grenades

[queen oar]

It's a simple question, Doc

Would you rather, be at a table, with Coca Cola, Steak, Baked Potatoes, Salad and Cake

Or

Be completely limbless, surrounded by the most dangerous Carnivores of the earth, with no disadvantages whatsoever, while Poisonous frogs fall from the sky, and Fire Tornadoes are being formed out of the nowhere

Which would you choose?

[winter marsh]

both

[hardy sentinel]

If they stop the study on teen Rex I'll be sure one happens

[hardy sentinel]

Give me a large stick and a $20 bill

[winter marsh]

sue

[ancient crystal]

To defeat a Tyrannosaur, you must present them with their singular unifying weakness: an effigy of GSP, the sight of which shall cause the animal to be torn to shreds as GSP has attempted to do to their taxonomy

[winter marsh]

or just make them invalid, turning them into Megalosaurus Rex

[lavish frigate]

In one you hang out with fluffy rhinos, in the other you get assassinated by big paleo

[fluid inlet]

Wow this is such a dope Giga artwork

[hardy sentinel]

What da felis doin

[ashen ether]

The cat hired more than just a merc he hired Adam smasher or Morgan black hand from cyberpunk (or v depending on your tastes lol)

[tranquil quartz]

“look behind you” ah moment

[runic heart]

Actually the haolonggood does the whole sauropod “beak” thing pretty well on their Argentinosaurus.

Also Merry Christmas chat

[tranquil quartz]

picked up xilin the wuerhosaurus and fredrick the lokicerstops from PSNO or whatever their called, xilin is my spirit animal

[runic heart]

Their argent is awesome. Kind of a shame that it’s almost $300 though.

[fluid inlet]

Well it’s pretty big and heavy

[runic heart]

It is massive, so I guess it makes sense.

[stiff osprey]

I have one on the shelf behind me rn, worth it

[charred hearth]

i have a question, how much beak do they mean when they talk about the sauropod beak theory?

[stiff osprey]

the texture around the mouth shows that it was covered in some kind of hornlike tissue. it wouldn't make a sharp point like a true beak though

[charred hearth]

would it be like stegosaurus's psuedo beak?

[stiff osprey]

stego just has a regular beak

[charred hearth]

oh alright

get bit by stegosaurus or get bit by triceratops

[runic heart]

Could have just been denser lip tissue as well, right?

[stiff osprey]

Could be sort of like what crocs have around the face

[granite thicket]

Im not even approaching trike's scissor jaws man

[charred hearth]

i always imagined ceratopsians had a decent biteforce

[granite thicket]

I think I heard trike's biteforce was like 3 tons but idk
Their jaws were like scissors and def used for defense

[thorn grove]

Stegosaurus could probably break your skin and maybe fingers

Triceratops could outright kill you

[charred hearth]

This is gonna be a stupid question but what would be the differences in diet / plant matter they would be consuming? im gonna assume ceratopsians ate much tougher plants while stegosaurids ate softer plants?

[light osprey]

Many a mammals with a large dental battery have robust mastication musculature

[granite thicket]

Yes
Fun fact: Zebra's were notorious for biting those who tried to ride them

[thorn grove]

It’s also a difference in what parts of the plants they would be eating. Stegosaurus would many eat softer leaves and potentially twigs, Triceratops could have cut up the stronger stems of the plants.

[granite thicket]

Probably
Thin snout usually suggests picky eater in herbis I think
Ceratopsian jaws were like scissors while stegosaurs could strip leaves at best
(Idk if they were capable of chewing)

[charred hearth]

@hallow spear i apologize for the ping but do we have any stomach contents from any stegosaurid?

[formal pecan]

Ion think so

[compact leaf]

as sauropod beak hater #1 I should try to draw the croc approach

[queen oar]

That's a Taurovenator no? Pretty sure it's like a Dino OC from someone, where it's based on a setting where there are extinct dinosaurs alive in the modern world, and this is like a Taurovenator where they eat from the trash and developed a friendship with the stray cats. Until eventually becoming essentially a pet to the neighborhood grandma

nevermind, the one I described it's a Meraxes, and the one in the art is a Giga. I'm pretty dumb.

[balmy oyster]

A triceratops could bite you in half

[charred hearth]

i wonder how often its mouth / beak was used in combat , interspecies or self defense

[queen oar]

Me when I hate the Sauropod beak idea.

[charred hearth]

well, why?

[queen oar]

Make yourself a question, if Sauropods had pseudo-beaks or straight-up beaks, isn't it weird that there is no... Not a single species that has derived that trait further? Like becoming like a completely beaked species, and loosing all of their teeth.

[charred hearth]

thats a question for someone smarter then i, like falcon here

[tough parcel]

Tyrannosaur arms
Abelisaur arms

[queen oar]

It happens a lot in Theropods, it happens partially in Ornithischians. In sauropods? Never.

[outer tusk]

Are you sure?

[queen oar]

I meant the beak, but sure lol

[tough parcel]

Perhaps this is because it worked?

We know they were shedding teeth wholesale due to their constant feeding so it's probably easier to grow front teeth in a group that already constantly replaces teeth than dealing with a broken beak damaged via constant usage

[queen oar]

But isn't it weird that there is not a single species that derived that trait? If it was present. It's not like they always had to eat the same kinds of plants, or vegetal material. So, there would definitely be some room for specialization. I just find it weird... That it does not happen, not even once.

[tough parcel]

I mean if you can find more sauropod soft tissue and/or skulls, be my guest LOL

That's the main problem here too!

[outer tusk]

This is why Tapuisaurus is TOP sauropod

[compact leaf]

my gripe with a true beak is that it would still need gums anyway because to has to be pliable enough for replacement teeth to go in, and the surface fossils don't indicate a true beak necessarily just some robust covering that may or may not have extended to the surface

[queen oar]

I mean, sure... But it's also like, even for Titanosaur skulls for example, they are just going back to trends already done in Jurassic Sauropods. It's not really like, there's much going on. Sauropods just seem to repeat adaptations related to how they eat. Not bad, because it might just mean that they don't really need to do anything different... Or they are just pretty flexible.

[outer tusk]

or they're just animals doing what animals do when evolution calls for

[queen oar]

Nah. Sauropods are above that... They are the GOATs

Also, I swear if after this conversation we find a purely beaked sauropod... I don't really know what i'm gonna do, but I'll definetly do something.

[ashen wedge]

You know what, this is my new headcannon for this Sauropod just cause I find it too funny

[runic heart]

Might be beaks, might not be. It could just be a different kind of lip tissue.

[queen oar]

What if it was just Lips with thick scales?

[runic heart]

Again, haolonggood Argentinosaurus is a good example of what it might look like in the flesh. And yes, thick scaled lips is a good possibility.

[queen oar]

Ew.

[runic heart]

Doesn’t look horrendous. Less like a beak and more like the jaws of an excavator or something.

[queen oar]

It reminds me of very bad Sauropod reconstructions i've seen from someone once... Won't remember their name.

[charred hearth]

your doing too much

[runic heart]

Again, might not have been that exagerated. All we know is that there was something very.. dense I guess?.. attached to the lip areas of sauropod. Could have been anything from beak-like structures to just dense lips.

[queen oar]

I'm assuming you are likely referring to that stuff we found around the teeth of Camarasaurus, but realistically, wouldn't any soft tissues kinda of become dense after being preserved in the rock for such a long time?

[runic heart]

Idk

[pearl aspen]

<@&1118094543787663381> I need to find out who is using my email on a game NOW!

[queen oar]

Like, I'm pretty sure that this happens, but most soft tissues preserved in fossil kinda of become either too densely compacted or harden due to how they reach a stage of decomposition where conjunctive tissues loose any flexibility they originally had.

[compact leaf]

it's also based on bone textures in diplodocids and camarasaurus, not necessarily the lips entirely either but possibly just the gums underneath

[queen oar]

Me when the hypothesis is about Bone texture in fossils. Bruh

[runic heart]

So just dense gums.

[pearl aspen]

I came up with the concept of this game 20 years ago tech wasn't ready I see it on tictok and I can't log in because somehow a game I've not played "path of titans" says my email is in use!!!!!

[runic heart]

You know what’d be awesome. One young mummified perfectly preserved specimen of each major group of dinosaur.

[compact leaf]

possibly but it does seem pretty extensive, so whatever it is it's weird but not necessarily a beak

[queen oar]

🙂‍↕️

[runic heart]

Yeah, that sounds nice.

[ancient crystal]

Another edmontosaurus mummy, take it or leave it

[queen oar]

leave it

At that point just find a Shantungosaurus mummy and give it to @thorn grove

[runic heart]

Are the diplodocus scales pretty similar to other sauropod scales that may have been found, or are they completely different? Can’t imagine sauropods, or any dinosaur in a specific group, would need to change their scale shape so drastically overtime.

[runic heart]

Nah gimme another hadrosaur. I wanna see if they all got the weird upper back thing going on.

[compact leaf]

we have a lot less from other sauropods but titanosaurs seem to be at least a little different

[runic heart]

Ok well I’d expect a little different. Wondering if they had those sick lower back spike-looking scales that diplodocus seems to have.

[compact leaf]

we don't know for all sauropods, but there's embryos without those that have a row of bigger flat midline scales

[ancient crystal]

Velociraptor mummy that reveals they were featherless and shrinkwrapped, or pachyrhinosaurus mummy that reveals they had shaggy mammoth-esque coats

Pick your poison

[runic heart]

Well I’d have to pick the pachy, cause the veli would imply I’d have to imagine Utahraptor like that too.

[outer tusk]

The former

[thorn grove]

I would take an articulated Shantungosaurus at this point

[plush fossil]

Would dromaeosaurs taste like chicken or turkey? Or something else? If this has an answer LOL
I would like to know for next Christmas

[compact leaf]

probably neither considering those are grain feeding birds with huge fat deposits, they probably taste like whatever a hawk would taste like

[charred hearth]

i wish i could taste hawk too A. very pleasent meal i think it would be

[tough parcel]

https://tenor.com/view/were-all-infected-gif-10818069

[charred hearth]

how flexible would a stegosaurids plates be? like, this will sound stupid but would they jiggle / sway when walking?

[tribal sandal]

Hello there,

Please feel free to contact our friendly support team: https://alderon.games/support

They will be able to take a look at your concern and assist further

[runic heart]

Bro what could I possibly be saying that’s getting me flagged

[charred hearth]

and would they be loose / flexible enough to even theoretically touch?

[pearl aspen]

It's just a circle of advertising no person to contact

[plush fossil]

So if I had two of them would that equal to the taste of a hawk or two? Ahh...hard to tell

[charred hearth]

i did it first and i did it better

[charred hearth]

is ano the slowest playable in game? ( if it was like, yknow real life )

[stiff osprey]

technically tylo, eurhino and kai are slower than ano on land

[charred hearth]

how big of a difference would ano and stego be? im gonna assume their close to the same speed

[thorn grove]

stego would be a good bit faster iirc due to having much longer legs

[charred hearth]

is it the 2nd slowest land creature or is there someone slower then stego but faster then ano?

[zealous ravine]

Bone texture is shockingly informative, you'd be very surprised lol

That's how we reconstruct muscles, muscle attachments leave distinctive marks in the bone texture

[zealous ravine]

Well probably Pachy cause we know velo at least had wings

[charred hearth]

if a dinosaur did have a shaggy mammoth-esque coat, would it really count as fur? or would it be something different?

i know feathers are highly modified scales, then what is hair and stuff like what?

[hardy sentinel]

hair is a type of modified scale too

[charred hearth]

oh.

[hardy sentinel]

a dinosaur with a shaggy coat would have a fur like coat, but it wouldn't be fur as that's unique to mammals

[charred hearth]

would it be considered feathers then?

[balmy oyster]

It also depends on the structure of the “scaled” too because hairlike feathers still do resemble certain types of more basal kinds of feathering when looked at up close

[green helm]

how big is Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni

[granite thicket]

Around 7.6m I think

[fossil ingot]

Random got it around that yeah

[ashen wedge]

Who’s the new big croc (yes I know it’s not technically a crocodile, but y’all get what I mean)

[runic heart]

Astorgosuchus? I don’t think it’s new, and I believe it is an actual crocodile.

[ashen wedge]

Oh didn’t know it, as I haven’t heard it ever being mentioned before

[outer tusk]

mix between Astorgosuchus, and Rhamposuchus

[brave nova]

Puru would be the biggest 1. He’s sitting at 6.6t

[runic heart]

Yeah me neither

[runic heart]

How did mosasaurus and tylosaurus skulls compare to each other? I know tylosaurus had a longer head, and the rostrum thing, but was its head also thinner than mosa’s?

[outer tusk]

tylosaurus has the longer skull

[prisma hawk]

Is it widely accepted that Tylosaurus and kin evolved to be secondarily marine aquatic separately from Mosasaurus and kin? Because if so that’s crazy

[ashen wedge]

It’s a type of Mosasaur and within that family

[prisma hawk]

Yeah I’m aware. I mean did the Tylosaurinae and the Mosasaurinae evolve to be secondarily aquatic separately. In other words was the common ancestor of both aquatic or terrestrial

[ashen wedge]

Mosa-family was already aquatic when Tylosaurus came around

[prisma hawk]

I was watching the Skeleton crew on YouTube and Amelia Zietlow, who is a mosasaur researcher, said the opposite. So im curious if that’s widely accepted or not

[tough parcel]

If Zietlow said it, I fear there's not much to be said

[prisma hawk]

That’s crazy though, that’d be like if whales evolved twice

[tough parcel]

Me when I just really really really really really like swimming

[prisma hawk]

Being a swimmy lizard was so in vogue 90 million years ago

[spice latch]

Dang deino just looks like a normal gator size in that

[outer tusk]

yeah it's only about 2 meters long and several 100 kilogarm heavier

[spice latch]

If birds are reptiles is hatz a bird?
Also was it a chunky fella or still slim like other azdarchids

[prisma hawk]

Azhdarchids are like if you took a giraffe and emaciated it to the point that it could fly

[ancient crystal]

No it doesn't work like that, all birds are reptiles but not all reptiles are birds.

And hatz, though assumedly more robust than other azdarchids would have still been pretty slim.

[outer tusk]

no because they're not aves

[spice latch]

I see

One day this will be found and my life will be complete

[fossil ingot]

Yeah
Proportions need to be updated but 0rob about same size

[shell flame]

https://tenor.com/view/dead-pigeon-awakened-play-dead-gif-12561300
Azdarchids when an average midsized theropod enters their domain

[spice latch]

Bruh he was so cozy

[ancient crystal]

This is the worst thing ever

[spice latch]

I like it

It’s funny lookin

[runic heart]

Yes, but are they broad to the same degree, or is tylos skull also thinner?

[outer tusk]

yeah ig so

[fossil ingot]

Tylo's Body was slimmer than Mosa (what been a speed demon does to you)
Skull might either be the same or slightly thinner

[runic heart]

Apparently they were around the same level of thickness

[runic heart]

I was just wondering cause the php mosas head is fairly broad. Although I just noticed that it’s thinner in season 2 actually..

[outer tusk]

likely just a model edit change to fit more accurately simialr to Hatz

[runic heart]

Actually yeah idk if the second one is just perspective, but it seems much thinner; but is it to an accurate degree?

(I believe they did the same for season 2 tyrannosaurus)

[outer tusk]

Should be fine

[ancient crystal]

It definitely looks like a model change

[runic heart]

Seems like it’s only for the one shot though. The mosasaurus model in the hunting scene is too fat.

[ancient crystal]

Could be a camera thing then?

[runic heart]

Yeah, seems like a perspective thing.

Wait is the bottom one mosasaurus here?

[outer tusk]

no it's actually the Jurassic World Crococetus

[runic heart]

Trippy. Imma have to get used to this.

[warped peak]

Someone pinged me

[light osprey]

It is, they did not change the model for their Mosasaurus

[runic heart]

I yearn for the day we get a documentary or game that’s based on 100% design accuracy. Preferably a game, since depictions can be changed with time.

[balmy oyster]

If we do it’s gonna suck balls ima be so fr

[runic heart]

Chances are yeah, but we need some more accuracy around.

Sorry, “scientifically informed stuff”.

[balmy oyster]

That makes it sound worse somehow

[outer tusk]

I read this comment SO out of context

[balmy oyster]

lmao

[native kindle]

game that never gets finished/documentary that becomes heavily out of date in 10 years you mean? because that's what you get when you try to exclusively build off of strict realism

[full lagoon]

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[undone rapids]

Its doable if the scale is small, but no every indie dino game must be multiplayer survival with gazillion features

[runic heart]

Well, for a documentary yes. Sauria was ONE TIME though. I believe it can certainly be done right. Again, Ecos La Brea is a good example. Sure it’s on Roblox, but it’s pretty neat and fun to play. The game is simple, so much of the focus can be on accuracy.

[outer tusk]

Chat am doing a tyrannosaurus head and I need to know which speicmen should I do (Sue) or (Scotty

[native kindle]

anything else actually

[balmy oyster]

Give us dinosaurs that can move faster than a dying snail 🔥 🔥

[runic heart]

Just go generic. Sue and Scotty are all beaten up.

Actually, what does a not-warped tyrannosaurus skull look like?

[outer tusk]

The holotype and AMNH 5027 are one

[prisma hawk]

That’s what Saurian tried to do, which was an enormous mistake imo

[runic heart]

Well, it was pretty ambitious, but again Ecos La Brea is doing kind of the same thing, and much more smoothly.

[prisma hawk]

Yeah true

[full lagoon]

Ecos is pretty good but it doesn't really stand out in actual gameplay substance, at least for now

[runic heart]

Well, for that reason they can focus on accuracy. It’s still fun to play as well.

[balmy oyster]

I think only sue is, scotty’s is just incomplete

[full lagoon]

It suffers the same issues as many animal survival games, and can become boring quickly without constant fighting.

[hallow spear]

Isaberrysaura, though it isnt a Stegosaurid, it is inside of Stegosauria though

[balmy oyster]

It’s the best so far on Roblox, everything has unique mechanics, movement is good, and for the first time aside from military-dino RP games doesn’t force you to go through a tedious poorly done growth process

[runic heart]

True, but there are unfortunately few good ways to fix that.

[full lagoon]

No hate towards the game at all btw, it's impressive

[hallow spear]

i wonder what you're refering to!!

[balmy oyster]

[runic heart]

Yeah it’s pretty cool. Got some leaked images of upcoming creatures and they look pretty good.

[balmy oyster]

Wait then why haven’t WE DONE AN OSTEOLOGY YET

[hallow spear]

its postcrania was supposed to be described but it hasnt been so idk

[runic heart]

What’s in stegosauria that’s not a stegosaurid?

[full lagoon]

What does isaberrysaura look like?

[hallow spear]

Huayangosaurs

@full lagoon we dk, it only has the skull described

[balmy oyster]

We do have all the material shown (and it was NOT something like dryo i forgot the name lol; originally thought to be one)

Stego my brain blanked what are stuff like nanosaurus and dryosaurus

[full lagoon]

Such is the dilemma of finding bones misplaced from the rest of the body 😔

[hallow spear]

Basal Neo ornithischian

[balmy oyster]

Yes those ones

[full lagoon]

Interestingly, that inferred leg shape almost makes it look like a lanky theropod, I wonder how likely that is.

[hallow spear]

this was a recon based on neo ornithischians

[balmy oyster]

Probably not very, dunno how accurate this is but the ilium looks rather small

[full lagoon]

It must be that I'm not used to seeing specimens with legs quite that long.

[hallow spear]

The recon isnt accurate at all its all assumed, not based on actual material

the material is probably still unprepped

[full lagoon]

Yeah that's what I was assuming based on other well known neornithscia

[hallow spear]

yeah, it maybe resides inside of Huayangosauridae

[ancient crystal]

I mean, saurian tried that so we know how that turns out

[outer tusk]

anyone got with pterosaurs? am still kind of stump whether the neck detail I gave this guy is enough or not

[hallow spear]

make the neck thicker imo

[full lagoon]

Yeah I agree, it looks a bit thin

[ancient crystal]

Make it thinner, it won't be accurate until it looks like it would choke on a pencil lead

[full lagoon]

Make more room in the context of the esophagus and throat I'd say

[outer tusk]

like this?

[opaque kayak]

They were so busy making T.rex's nostril pores correct that they forgor to make the gameplay fun

[full lagoon]

Looks a lot better to me, bro didn't have room for a throat before

[tough parcel]

No, it'd be fine

[outer tusk]

if only we actually had a sense of what a pterosaur thorat looked like

[ancient crystal]

Azdarchids have no use for a throat, for they feed on the fears of orphans

[full lagoon]

I like the horn that you put on the snout, I'm assuming this is a speculative pterosaur?

[tough parcel]

If we look at birds like storks, the esophagus and various airways can easily fit into the space

[ancient crystal]

Probably like a throat

[full lagoon]

I mean what he originally had barely traced the vertebra

[tough parcel]

Yea, I know lol

[outer tusk]

Would you call this a horn?

[ancient crystal]

No

[full lagoon]

As much as ceratosaurus' I suppose, not a true horn. (You get what I mean)

[outer tusk]

def

[tough parcel]

I can't find an x-ray of a heron that isn't bunched up but they're freaks

[full lagoon]

Weird

[ancient crystal]

Freaks is such a kind word for what ever the hell this is

[full lagoon]

However I still question if an azdarchid would be exactly like that due to their larger size and build

[outer tusk]

true would love to see some actual soft tissue in sometime in the future that gets assigned to these animals

[full lagoon]

For sure. Unfortunately it may never come to be given the nature of fossilization. 💔

[ancient crystal]

The earth is vast, and our efforts so narrow, I'm sure one day it will be uncovered

[full lagoon]

That's definitely a fair statement too

[runic heart]

Who says it can’t be attempted again?

[ancient crystal]

The general wisdom of not repeating someone else's mistakes

[runic heart]

Well that game went under cause scummy people. If the right people work on a project, it’ll be fine.

[balmy oyster]

So the throat just does whatever

[runic rover]

The problem with saurian is that if you have to keep up with the modern times you'll end up making 5 times the game over and over because of new discoveries

Imagine throwing the entire mechanic of Dakotaraptor, a playable in the trash bin because it suddenly isn't a thing anymore.

[runic heart]

I mean, not really. If you really do your research and set up an accurate environment with accurate creatures, only minor tweaks will need to be made.

[ancient crystal]

Imagine Saurian did get off the ground, with the devs maintaining their dedication to accuracy.

The latest nano paper would have been absolutely devastating to the game

[balmy oyster]

To be fair we do still have large dromeosaur elements, so it would just have to unnamed to work

[balmy oyster]

Nano’s validity in itself was devastating to decades of tyrannosaurus research, saurian woulda been fried

[runic rover]

Hey fishy, I saw you writing of acro yesterday

Could you tell me more of it? I want to know about the huge spine

[tough parcel]

Acro's spines are broken, it's just a natural curve connecting the first spines and the sacrals

[balmy oyster]

We do have one described vert somewhere that shows the sheer height (anterior caudal), forgot if it was the paratype or smu specimen

[unreal wharf]

SIX SEVENNNN

[ancient crystal]

https://tenor.com/view/dispatch-dispatch-game-robert-attack-kick-gif-2274002873513934273

[outer tusk]

ikr

[balmy oyster]

Great meme reset (those who knoe)

[fossil ingot]

The Goat

[outer tusk]

fah now I gonna redo my spec evo inostran

[fossil ingot]

Lol

[outer tusk]

wait nah I think it's close but I do gonna straighten the back leg and swopped the tail

[fossil ingot]

Now I see the change in proportions better

[outer tusk]

idk why but his 3D one remidns me alot of his 2022 one

[hallow spear]

@balmy oyster @full lagoon @runic heart Forgot to send this

[runic heart]

So we don’t have a smooth transitional between stegosaurids and whatever came before that was plateless?

Oh and which was larger, Miragaia or dacentrurus?

[hallow spear]

Im not sure what you mean for the first thing, the phylogeny is heavily reduced taxa wise idrk why its missing quite a bit and Dacent is larger

[charred hearth]

did stegosaurus co-exist with any other stegosaurid?

i know other stegosaurids lived in the same formation but i believe they lived earlier then it

[balmy oyster]

Alcovasaurus

[charred hearth]

stego and its mini me

[compact leaf]

hesperosaurus is there too but I don’t remember if they overlap

[severe yew]

the almighty power of AI will bring the Dinosaurs back to life 😉

[outer tusk]

who let bro cook

[severe yew]

https://tenor.com/view/dino-yepyepyep-gif-11469912970502151557

thank you, AI 🙏

[charred hearth]

now you know sea dragon ragebaits with ai because everyone just gives keep giving him a reaction to keep going

[winter marsh]

dacentrurus is the second largest stegosaur iirc, so Dacen clears. Mira is about 6 meters ish

[fossil ingot]

So apparently Ino's model is about 1.2-1.3t LOL

[charred hearth]

PRIMEVIL INO SIZE WAS ACCURATE?

[pallid heath]

Diplocaulus got redesigned. I am appalled

[charred hearth]

https://tenor.com/view/gorganopsid-roaring-dinosaur-primeval-gif-17347357

[sterile trail]

Nibelsnarf be like:

(Monster hunter fans rise up)

Also this is funny

[lofty furnace]

Is it possible to speculate Stegosaurus having tiny spikes on his back? Like, is there any evidence against or in favour of this possibility?

[fossil ingot]

Dan Downsized it lol

[outer tusk]

it's the same volume

[fossil ingot]

I really think he is wrong on that ngl

[white matrix]

Perfect size snack 🧍‍♀️

[static widget]

Heess beautiful

[cinder prawn]

I love paleontology

[magic jacinth]

Hello paleo friends. I got a replica velociraptor skull for Christmas and am going to need to paint it myself unless i keep it ivory white.

Any insights into what color bests fits a velociraptor fossil based on the most common layers /strata they come from? Ik i could just look into it but there might be some nuance you smart people might know I wouldn't realize.

[brave nova]

Spinos biggest skull to its holotypes.

The holotype size should be right based off my scaling

[misty scarab]

Dinosaur

[granite thicket]

Yes a dinosaur

[lavish frigate]

Yes indeed a dinosaur

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/Ninnih_/status/2004384117648248957/photo/1

Ninni (@Ninnih_)

Paleo Accurate Hallucigenia Reconstruction

X · Dec 26, 2025, 2:49 AM

[delicate scroll]

Its just the numbers given to me by the program

I'll reiterate that it was the graphic that had an incorrect scale bar - the model in blender was always the correct size, and that's where the volume of the model is from

Obviously it may not be "correct", but it's not my priority to estimate the size anyways. Its the skeletal anatomy that counts

[flint river]

gold ofc, everyone knows velociraptor lived in absolute luxury and many were fossilized in their Scrooge McDuck style money pits

[stable sun]

Poorly described af

[stable sun]

I mean ancestors of Mosasaurus and Tylosaurus already had aquatic adaptations

[bright veldt]

It’s more accurate that they became entirely aquatic separately. Pretty sure the early mosasauroids were still semi-aquatic at the very least.

[fossil ingot]

Fair enough

[hallow spear]

Yes, quite a few

[hazy shale]

Ironic how the Stego replies to a question about himself

[hallow spear]

Assuming maximum splitting, S, Stenops, Diracodon, Hesperosaurus (SEPERATE) S. ungulatus, armatus, sulcatus, stenops and Alcovasaurus would have co-existed. with Hypsirophus being probably the only one not contemporary with any pre-existing labled stegosaur genus

This ofc is probably nto entirely correct since morrison stratigraphical dating is kinda eh

(I will also check this specifically asap)

[severe yew]

maybe this idea came from the prehistoric shark ? 🤷‍♂️

In 1982 a complete shark fossil was discovered in Bearsden

[tough parcel]

After skimming, that is not what happened at all

Especially because the first prototype entered flight testing in the 60s

[outer tusk]

☝️ I know Sea Dragon is ragebaiting but like come on gng this isn't even good ragebait

[full lagoon]

Semi related but I wanted to point out a potential use of that strange structure on the animal's fin. What if it was like that of a horn shark, making ingestion by larger predators more difficult?

https://tenor.com/view/walking-with-monsters-water-dwellers-before-the-dinosaurs-hyneria-stethacanthus-gif-3504842306169923042

Instead of literally being deleted when swallowed, what If it lodged itself inside of the mouth of its attacker with this and was spit out?

[ancient crystal]

That's actually very possible, as being taller than the mouth gape of potential predators is a very common predator defense in fishes.

[full lagoon]

Yeah and imagine that spiky cheese grater fin scraping across the roof of your mouth. It would definitely be uncomfortable.

[full lagoon]

For reference: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DR7qEERABKc/?igsh=ZzMyNW8yc3Rnd2Z3

natureunleashed_m2g

Sand-Blasting Breath Holder vs. Armored Shark: Nature's Amazing Defenses #shortstory #wildlifeonearth #documentary
.
.
.
.
🌊 Ever wonder how ocean creatures stay one step ahead of danger? This benthic hunter camouflages with sand blown through spiracles, while baby horn sharks rock nature's sharpest armor. Survival isn't about being biggest...

Likes

3087

Instagram

[severe yew]

na, i think it was more like some sort of underwater radar, like the AWACS

@outer tusk ain't that right, bro ?

@full lagoon

[tough parcel]

Speed of a demon

[severe yew]

similar to the sperm whale's, but this one was 360°

[severe yew]

i can swim faster than that

[ashen wedge]

Yeah crocs be hiding their true potential

[severe yew]

i hide my true potential too

most alpha predators do

[ashen wedge]

Cakes are the alpha predators

[severe yew]

na, i am talking about the likes of a trex, spinosaurus, megalodon, tiger, etc... 😉

[fossil ingot]

Yeah its funny when they do that
Specially Black Caimans

[charred hearth]

so stego lived with a bunch of other stegosauyrids from what im gathering?

i wonder what allo's favourite was too eat

[stiff osprey]

stego tried to split so hard he noted s.stenops twice

[charred hearth]

what does maxium splitting even mean?

[stiff osprey]

most of those species are considered invalid by researchers he just used the maximum possible number

[winter marsh]

bro just died, damn

[bright sluice]

What were lambeosaurus front feet like?

[full lagoon]

Yeah the clip is quite absurd when you think about it. The animal literally just disappeared in a cloud of blood. One of the main reasons I noted out how the build of stethacanthus probably wouldn't have made it too easy to swallow.

[outer tusk]

the Hyneria is just like that

[full lagoon]

He's built different 😳

[cinder prawn]

Random but I keep hearing about T. rex being an ambush predator but how would an animal that is over 9 thousand pounds sneak up on anything😭

[charred hearth]

silent foot steps

[stiff osprey]

elephants sneak up on people all the time and they aren't even trying to be stealthy. you just need dense foliage or some big rocks

[cinder prawn]

Yea that makes sense it’s just trippy to me how an animal that large could move like that

[jagged trellis]

ignoring the footpad bit for theropods, which does help
i mean its not built for chasing, better to get lower and outright bone shattering are better for ambushing

[stiff osprey]

tbf with rex it might have run for longer distances than other animals of its size. i'm sure it would prefer to hunt in areas with lots of cover though, unless it was nocturnal

[cinder prawn]

I heard from a podcast with dave hone that it would kinda like try to sneak up and get the first bit of distance before its prey could notice (basically a definition of ambushing so yea lol)

[outer tusk]

I don't blame them, elepahnts are very sneaky animals

[fluid inlet]

I wonder if we could have survived the same asteroid that sent the dinosaurs to the shadow realm

[stiff osprey]

I was playing POT the other day and a friend of mine unironically hid like this from some apexes, it worked

[outer tusk]

😭 lmao

[full lagoon]

I would believe it, especially compared to creatures outside saurischia

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/GogoMrdodo/status/2005050161731682449/photo/1 i loveee speculative behavior like this, even when not defending their kids, they still form a circle around them just incase, do any animals do this in nature?

GoGo_MrDoDo 🦤🏝 (@GogoMrdodo)

A Pachyrhino New Year's Gathering ☕️✨️

X · Dec 27, 2025, 10:56 PM

[outer tusk]

yes

[charred hearth]

sperm whales i presume?

[winter marsh]

yaks

most bovids tbh

[pallid heath]

As one always says

When a large creature gets in a protective circle a even worser creature is coming

[charred hearth]

well

[full lagoon]

Or they are protecting the vulnerable

[pallid heath]

That too but its usually when predators are coming

[wind prairie]

wdym there's nothing in that pic

[outer tusk]

IKR, bro i've been stuck trying to find it

[queen vortex]

“They aren’t dinosaurs, but theropods like most of the dinosaurs like Trex or raptors”

https://tenor.com/view/speed-ishowspeed-i-need-this-my-mom-is-kinda-homeless-tweaker-gif-7898738045635868823

[full lagoon]

https://tenor.com/view/mickey-mickey-mouse-mickey-mouse-clubhouse-disney-disney-jr-gif-2153693868521006674

[compact leaf]

“whales aren’t animals they’re mammals”

[full lagoon]

"Humans aren't animals they're mammals" (genuinely heard this before)

[stiff osprey]

i've heard fish aren't animals, insects aren't animals, reptiles aren't animals, birds aren't animals, but i have never heard mammals aren't animals before

[woeful falcon]

you forgot the best one: humans aren't animals

[granite thicket]

Muskox I think

[stiff osprey]

oh no that one i've heard before. every other mammal is an animal but not us because we're smart

[minor hollow]

thisjust made my day

[compact leaf]

no no mind you any 4 legged mammal is an animal, but whales aren’t because they’re mammals

I genuinely had that argument with a teacher

[stiff osprey]

four legs good, two legs or less... not a mammal

[charred hearth]

what if you have 3 legs

[runic heart]

What did scales look like for most plesiosaurs and pliosaurs? And I guess ichthyosaurs as well. And would any species of marine reptile in particular have been lacking lip scales for some reason?

[bright veldt]

Plesiosaurs and Ichthyosaurs mostly don't have scales at all. They have naked skin like dolphins. Scales are only really found in the front edge of the fins, which is likely for hydrodynamic-related reasons.

[granite thicket]

I thought they did have scales but just super tiny

[bright veldt]

No. Mosasaurs were like that though.

[plush fossil]

I love how the first ones are coloured like leopard seals (I think so anyways)

[runic heart]

How would the skin have transitioned to scales? What would that look like?

[charred hearth]

are pliosaurs the same or are they scaley like mosasaurids?

[bright veldt]

I mean we don't have skin preservation from them at all tmk. But there's no reason to suspect they'd be different from typical plesis.

[bright veldt]

I mean the scales afaik are very small and smooth. They weren't really too visible.

[hardy sentinel]

Pliosaurs are a type of Plesiosaur so it's probably the same as the other Plesiosaurs

[lavish frigate]

From the hit novel, Not An Animal Farm

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/euyartoa21/status/2004861590613754033

Kelenken32 (@euyartoa21)

Just paleontological question, do ceratopsians run like rhinos or gallop like elephants? This thought always make me question or doubt about the running locomotion of ceratopsian

X · Dec 27, 2025, 10:27 AM

choose your large african megafuana that is the most compareable to ceratopsians locomotion wise

[ancient crystal]

Well you see, animal and mammal rhyme, so they're the same but none of those other things

[charred hearth]

the answer would be hippos right?

[white matrix]

is the size of the eyes good?

[mighty willow]

Looks alright to me!

[snow python]

Is the biggest kronosaurus still estimated at 11m?

[calm parrot]

did yall know carcha had organs for reproduction like us

[spice latch]

I was gonna say I noticed similarities

[outer tusk]

neither

[spice latch]

Nuh uh you gotta choose one smarty pants

[outer tusk]

the "closest" is maybe elepahnt

[fossil ingot]

Tmm yeah
Hasn't changed

11.5m Beast

[hallow spear]

well you dont chose it, the answer is non of them, but the "closest" is elephants probably

[opaque kayak]

Peak timing since Krono skull just dropped 2 hrs ago

[outer tusk]

did he post this on his Insta cause I can't find it on his DA?

[opaque kayak]

Yup

[outer tusk]

wait how did you get the images though, you ss'd them?

[undone rapids]

You can get them from inspect element

[runic heart]

Pliosaurs and plesiosaurs probably had lip scales right? I mean idk why they wouldn’t, besides some crazy snaggleteeth in later elasmosaurs.

[sudden wind]

It's been suggested that large Ceratopsids might have been as athletic as rhinos:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352216336_The_evolutionary_biomechanics_of_locomotor_function_in_giant_land_animals
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/paleobiology/article/abs/forelimb-posture-in-neoceratopsian-dinosaurs-implications-for-gait-and-locomotion/D68C8C8D7CEAE836F5B5BE65A78ABD93

[tardy dune]

so can i use this to tell matt to buff eos sprint speed lol?

[sudden wind]

Personally, I doubt that Sauropterygians as a whole had lips.

[sudden wind]

Krilling myself over this.

[stiff osprey]

Eo charge is already faster than a real life rhino

[native kindle]

eo charge travels at 57.6 KM/H

[stiff osprey]

yeah that's horrifying lmao

No chance the real animal could go that fast

[tardy dune]

i ment eos normal sprint speed

[native kindle]

fastest playable in the game is eurhino, traveling at 180 KM/H during breach. hatzeg nosedive at 144? KM/H should be second

[stiff osprey]

144 km/h for hatz dive is actually not bad. 180 km/h ichthyosaur would die instantly tho

[tardy dune]

would rip the skin of his bones lmao

[opaque kayak]

How fast would hatz go if it wants to unalive(POT doesn't allow the other word 😭) itself and nosedives from the sky

[stiff osprey]

idk what the terminal velocity of a hatzegopteryx is, probably like 300-400km/h?

[opaque kayak]

Oneshots argentinosaurus

[stiff osprey]

I swear i saw a blog somewhere that calculated terminal velocity of a gallimimus but i can't find it

[last adder]

What- I didn't know it was THAT fast.

[stiff osprey]

Its average flight speed is like 80 km/h, nosedive being double that seems reasonable

[queen vortex]

Why do people still think birds are not dinosaurs and are instead just close to dinosaurs

[stiff osprey]

because schools still teach that birds and reptiles are separate classes

and I kinda get it because trying to get 10 year olds to understand cladistics and the seven billion unranked clades everything is in is a nightmare

[ancient crystal]

My 60 year old dad got in a shouting match with me over birds being reptiles

[sudden wind]

The logic of birds not being reptile would be the same as saying that we are not mammals because we don't have extensive fur.

It's mostly an historical relic more than anything. It's only been something recently considered (since the 80-90's) iirc.

[floral ivy]

How accurate are these estimates

[runic heart]

Well what did the basal members look like?

[sudden wind]

Saurosphargids and Placodonts.
Though this guy might be their closest relative.

[outer tusk]

indosuchus and indosaurus seem fine enough but raja is a bit off

[floral ivy]

Indosuchus and Indosaurus are said to be 2.7 metres tall and 7 metres long 🙏

[charred hearth]

i mean like, the closest in locomotion to it , not the exact same

[outer tusk]

yeah no these are ass, mainly because the original artist that the sizes used isn't known for the based scaling

[floral ivy]

Yea, though these from a book which will be published next year

(https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Princeton_Encyclopedia_of_Dinosaurs.html?id=81ZZEQAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q=princeton encyclopedia of dinosaurs theropods&f=false)

[outer tusk]

I feel like this book is gonan be bad

[floral ivy]

Atleast the information is somewhat accurate.

[runic rover]

Hmmmmm... I want it.

[little mauve]

File is too big to send over discord but it is findable online

Just dmed you the link

Early Flowers and Angiosperm Evolution by Friis, Crane, & Pedersen is another really good book on mesozoic paleobotany

[sudden wind]

^I also am interested for the link

[little mauve]

Dmed

[thorn token]

I wish allosaurus's mating dance was it just break dancing

[runic rover]

Expecially because mesozoic plants are so much different! I really want it so muchh

[calm parrot]

plants were huge back then, produced more oxygen

[lofty furnace]

Is the colossal "dire Wolf"'s white fur actually accurate or not?

[stiff osprey]

It's doubtful since they sourced material from La Brea, which is not a snowy environment, and would select against white predators.

It's more likely they were just paler than modern wolves afaik

[lofty furnace]

Thank you

[runic rover]

Speaking of plants in mesozoic... How realistic is Twisted forest and/or the giant tree?

[stiff osprey]

the biggest mesozoic trees we know are like 400ft tall, surely there could have been larger ones but not the size of big tree overlook

[little mauve]

The biophysical limit of tree height has been calculated to be around 130 meters, redwoods probably got that high within recent prehistory, @stiff osprey where is the record of 400 footers in the Mesozoic from?

[stiff osprey]

Larramendi et al (2020)'s sauropod book mentions it, I don't think it was exactly 400 ft but more like 113-115 meters

[little mauve]

Not exactly true. Primary productivity was probably higher during periods of higher CO2, the plants weren't bigger they were just more plentiful and/or energetically productive

[little mauve]

The tallest living Sequoia is about that tall, so thats reasonable

[cloud dagger]

Me trying to read about paleozoic (or triassic) plants only to find out most of the papers are behind a paywall… there is so little about paleobotany anyway

[opaque kayak]

Huh

[stiff osprey]

Oh i was right the first time

[opaque kayak]

143 meters is pretty funne

[runic heart]

I mean possibly. It’s also a possibility that the gray wolf dna they used just ended up expressing white fur.

[stiff osprey]

One of the press posts said the lighter fur was a dire wolf feature, though tbf who knows when they're telling the truth or not

[runic heart]

Again, there isn’t much dire wolf in them. The skeleton and build is very much akin to gray wolves.

Dires are much more robust in the snout area, and are a bit bulkier than actual canids.

[stiff osprey]

Hard to compare a living animal to a skeleton, especially if it's a juvenile. They do seem to have particularly wide snouts but so far are not much different from grays postcranially

[runic heart]

Again, I don’t know as much about mammal stuff. I’m much more knowledgeable as a dinosaur/reptile enthusiast. The guys over in the Ecos server know much more on the subject.

[stiff osprey]

tbh the ecos dire wolf looks very gracile to me, it's probably due to the short fur though

[runic heart]

Yeah they probably weren’t extremely furry. It’s still California, so it wasn’t that cold.

[severe yew]

definitive proof that Spinosaurus could dive

https://youtube.com/shorts/HrKnCSSLDzQ?si=ounxt8ZAC_Zb9epq

[tough parcel]

Don't do it, don't take the bait...

[bright veldt]

There’s been unpublished stuff which suggests pale coloration but almost certainly not white. Snow White is essentially unheard of in large carnivorans unless it’s under specific circumstances. It was lowkey made up for the Game of Thrones appeal.

[tough parcel]

Wasn't the white chosen for due to genetic complications with genes for a "lighter" coat?

[bright veldt]

Haven’t exactly heard of that. I only heard that they had to do a more complicated workaround method to get the white color because the genes were tied to some physical issues.

[tough parcel]

That's what I'm remembering I was under the impression that they did try to do "lighter" but couldn't, though yours also makes sense

[runic rover]

Wewn't dire wolves more jackal-like than actual wolves?

[bright veldt]

That’s a misnomer. Dire Wolves are kind of their own lineage not super closely related to anything else.

[ancient crystal]

You could say our knowledge of dire wolves is in pretty dire straits

[runic rover]

Idk why I remembering someone saying that Direwolf used to be a very large jackal (or like an ancestor to it) I wouldn't know myself since I never interested myself in prehistoric mammals, just wanted to add my own experience to it

[bright veldt]

It’s a misunderstanding of how to look at phylogeny. I fell for that too at the time. Lemme grab the image.

While it’s tempting to say because of this, they’re closest to jackals because they’re next to it in the tree, that’s not how it works. They’re related to all the other canines here equally. They’re sister to that entire lineage. Not the next split after that lineage forms.

Jackals are closer related to the painted dogs, dholes, and wolves than they are to aenocyon.

[light osprey]

Wasn’t their material sourced explicitly not from La Brea

[runic rover]

Ngl but I learned to distrust these more than Thomas Carr in a Nanotyrannus convention, expecially after trying to read megaraptorans on wikipedia.

[stiff osprey]

One of their localities is from southern latitudes, the other i don't remember

[bright veldt]

It wasn’t. It was from somewhere around Ohio iirc. In the east.

[stiff osprey]

Ohio is pretty northern, but was it within the arctic circle at the time? I imagine not

[bright veldt]

It was about the same as now yes. I looked it up. The DNA was from two fossils in two different sites. One in Ohio and one in Idaho.

[stiff osprey]

Both are northern

Evidence I do not know where US states are

[bright veldt]

Might I also add that even if it was super northern, it would say basically nothing. Arctic Wolves are an isolated population with limited genetics (they aren’t even born white) and polar bears are bears that are also extremely specialized marine mammals.

[charred hearth]

whats y'alls hopes, thoughts and predictions for paleontology in 2026?

[bright veldt]

There is no serious correlation with northern latitudes and lighter colors in such animals.

[light osprey]

Arctic circle is just the beginning of the region which has at least one 24hour day and one 24hour night
Cold climates are decoupled from this.

[bright veldt]

It’s why we can pretty confidently say homotherium probably wasn’t white like that one segment in PhP Ice Age too.

[stiff osprey]

What's the region that has sea ice called

[light osprey]

The ocean

[stiff osprey]

Dire wolves did not live in the ocean, so I was correct that they were not white

[light osprey]

Impressive deductive work

[stiff osprey]

This also suggests that pilot whales live in fire since they are black, the opposite of white

Boiling water (water with fire)

[light osprey]

We had done some digging and the vegetation at the time in Idaho and Ohio are quite cold but nothing like Canadian Arctic Archipelago where the whitest of the modern wolves reside.

[outer tusk]

😭 lmao

[runic rover]

NHM-PV R.2981(a) and NHM-PV R.2129(b) actual good material. As well as something about Sauroniops.

[fossil ingot]

Happy cause we are getting More Zucheng Stuff specially with Suecheng
Happy Adam is Finally likely getting described and have actual Good Ceratopcian Postcrania Description
Hopefully the Schimitar Spino gets Described
Hopefully we get more Carch Stuff, either Carch itself or a new lad

[light osprey]

The Ohio material should be of a similar age

[opaque kayak]

It's ironic since the only specimen I've seen hyped up for the last 3 years that actually got described was the Yellowstone hyperpredator

[charred hearth]

what was it?

[opaque kayak]

A big meg someone hyped up as a new thing

[fossil ingot]

Think the paper is said to be almost 50 pages or close to that
Don't remember

Adam Postcrania is damn good

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/Capi974/status/2004966858450219485 how big would this cleaner fish theroretically be?

Capi - Pickpock (@Capi974)

What would a megalodon cleaning station look like? #paleoart

X · Dec 27, 2025, 5:25 PM

[thorn token]

I would say maybe about the size of a northern pike

[charred hearth]

ty pike man

[thorn token]

Also this could be a cleaner wrasse

I think it would be sort of a symbiosis between fish and shark like today except with a bus sized shark and a quite large cleaner fish

[flint river]

on a scale of 1 pike to 10 pikes, how’s your day going

Also to all my other paleo nerds here, how likely do you think is it for an undiscovered sauropod or some other herbivorous dinosaur to have a trunk? Considering how highly complex and specialized they are I feel like it’d be incredibly unlikely, and proboscideans kinda got lucky with them long noses

[sharp nymph]

That's a very interesting question.

[balmy oyster]

It would likely be very unneccecary unless it was something as display or to variate calls, like a pronghorn or tapir. (Elephants too to an extent as well minus physical functionality) Not for function because, well, neck should help with reaching stuff around and whatnot

We do already have evidence somewhat of expanding/fleshy nasal features on certain dinosaurs, so maybe not impossible.

[ashen wedge]

What’s the status on the new Brontosaurus specimens? As I know it was changed partially recently from being a bit different from Aptasaurus

[runic heart]

https://tenor.com/view/how-do-we-tell-him-mr-krabs-spongebob-meme-spongebob-meme-gif-24063814

I was trying to reference mutaburrasaurus, but I understand that’s a different case.

Plus I think most hadrosaurs have inflatable nasal areas.

[balmy oyster]

Kid named saurolophines

Obviously no trunk but there was very clearly skull support for some sort of fleshy nasal structure

[charred hearth]

how accurate is everyone? https://x.com/Cindy_Joli/status/2005072592341008777/photo/1

Joli AquaIslander (@Cindy_Joli)

~World's Largest Fully Aquatic Toothed Predators~

If there are any other known fully aquatic toothed predators worth mentioning, drop in the comments and I'll add later.

See full resolution on my deviant art page here:) https://t.co/G9ov5280WL

#marine #ocean #predatorx #whale

X · Dec 28, 2025, 12:25 AM

[sudden wind]

Not great tbf

[runic heart]

I’ll just note what I see: mosasaurs are too thick, livyatan is too long, Prionosuchus is too stubby.

[charred hearth]

dang, i would've never noticed

[charred hearth]

i know your a specialist in marine mammals , why would you say some of inaccuracies is?

[outer tusk]

Helicoprion and Megalodon are pretty bad

[balmy oyster]

Helicoprion is fine, but meg and livy do definitely have issues

Mosa and tylo’s size should be fine i believe since both can get pretty large

[charred hearth]

whats the issue with meg?

[thorn token]

Some article I read said that helicoprion spun i
ts bottom jaw like a saw

[ancient crystal]

I like how they included the Tuna

Like what are you doing here little fella? Go back to your can.

I mean, I know they're big, but when I think "largest toothed aquatic animals" Tuna is not on said list

[charred hearth]

tuna are the size of great whites??

[ancient crystal]

Well, would you look at that lmao

I still stand by it being strange they're here. In fact I'd say the same for the great white.

It seems they're going off of some mix between time period and general grouping of animal.

Like I would've just put the sperm whale and maybe orca for extant species

[idle storm]

A trunk on any reptile is extremely unlikely. The mammalian trunk is made of our complex facial musculature which reptiles lack. And that musculature is associated with differences in the pathway of the trigeminal nerve that are probably associated with developmental novelties unique to mammals.

[flint river]

Yea that’s what I was thinking, it’s the whole reason human facial expressions can be so diverse

[outer tusk]

helcoprion snout is too long

[balmy oyster]

to be fair we don't have that part preserved, so its possible it could've been a little more conicle and elongated unless we have a close relative that would probably disprove that

[outer tusk]

we do

[balmy oyster]

Which ones

[outer tusk]

give me like a good hour or so it takes time

[charred hearth]

times ticking

[warped peak]

Prionosuchus there is almost entirely wrong

The whole art looks great at a glance, but more direct looking shows almost too many issues to lost

[lavish frigate]

This makes me wanna commit oceanic war crimes

You can’t give plesiosaurs lips. That’s not even a statement of paleontological fact. Just a straight up moral statement. 💀

[charred hearth]

can i ask exactly whats wrong with prino? im curious

[halcyon cobalt]

legs r way too long, body too fat probably more

[runic heart]

May I ask what exactly suggests that they didn’t have lip scales? Or actual lips in this case..?

[lavish frigate]

To my understanding the teeth are just too big, along with them being in a lipless group in general (could be wrong)

[restive crag]

Nah you’re right there’s nothing to suggest lips

[balmy oyster]

Somehow i missed this completely

[full lagoon]

The species name isn't even correct. It's Funkei, not Funkie

[opaque kayak]

Typo 💔

[warped peak]

Legs too long, body is too thick, head too large, tail is the entirely wrong shape, external gills

[queen vortex]

Could utahraptor have a neck this chunky

[plucky basin]

i mean

[charred hearth]

are peguins really the best allegory for a dromeosauird?

[queen vortex]

I always compare dromeosaurids with chicken

They are like one of the closest relatives of dinosaurs

[plucky basin]

duh, any bird IS a dinosaur

[queen vortex]

Correct statement, I only use chickens because I see a lot of people always use chickens to compare with dinosaurs

Admire pijon

[plucky basin]

I personally use flightless birds or birds of prey

[plucky basin]

yes pijon, very bird indeed

[halcyon cobalt]

I personally use domesticated pigeon breeds or de-feathered taxidermies, but go figure

[plucky basin]

oh god i forgot about the second image

[runic rover]

Maybe the pliosaurus liked to dance to the 80's music?

[zealous ravine]

I would maybe say either a roadrunner or Seriema

Seriema’s use a sickle claw to dispatch prey like dromies, and watching roadrunners they always just feel like how a dromie would move

[granite thicket]

Yes cause a lot of birds can look fat because of feathers

[balmy oyster]

Technically speaking, Paleognathanae (ostriches, moas, emus) are the closest living relatives to non-avian dinosaurs

[granite thicket]

Kiwi

[stable sun]

Not really, all birds are the closest relatives of non-avian dinosaurs and all birds are equally close

[balmy oyster]

fair

[crimson depot]

No

[crimson depot]

Artist: FancyTyrant

[ashen wedge]

Yes

[queen vortex]

Friend shaped

[outer tusk]

ew

[queen vortex]

What dinosaur would u give neck scratches and belly rubs

[runic heart]

Well why would their ancestors have lost them?

[outer tusk]

dryosaurus

[runic heart]

Obviously by the time pliosaurs became a thing, they wouldn’t be lip scales cause they just didn’t have scales at that point.

[tough parcel]

Not really? Birds have a smooth silhouette due to being flying animals and thus needing a streamlined shape to reduce flight drag

A Utahraptor would not be flying

[tough parcel]

Like any other lipless aquatic animal, they probably lost it to catch fish but this is a theory

Also their teeth, besides being too big, splay out too far (especially in the front), it's the same reasoning for Spinosaurus but more exaggerated

[runic heart]

And because they had skin on most of them rather than scales, would it look more like a river dolphin face? And how far back should the line be drawn? Like, would it be the same case for ichthyosaurs because of a basal ancestor, or is it derived in just plesiosaurs?

[sudden wind]

Bluefin tunas are among the largest toothed bony fish

Sturgeons aren't exactly toothed so they are to exclude. Same for ocean sunfish, which are the largest extant bony fish. Oarfish have no teeth as well. Add to the toothless category giant Mekong catfish, which is a freshwater animal btw and I think the creator only includes marine species. Wels catfish teeth are not visible too. Marlins do have teeth but these are quite small. Alligator gars are dwarfed by yellowfin tunas: they are just long, not heavy. Arapaimas also are lightweights next to bluefins. Largest goliath groupers are about a third of the largest bluefin tunas' size.

I think they only selected animals with visible teeth and wanted to compare extant and extinct taxa. However, the disposition is not the best.

[ancient crystal]

Yeah, I was not aware just how large they got. But I think it's odd to include either the tuna or great white, even if they're among the largest toothed bony and non bony fish.

They didn't do the same with the extinct taxa so it seems very redundant.

[runic heart]

These properly proportioned? Yk, with the swept ribs and everything.

[spice latch]

All of them

[queen vortex]

Me too

[runic heart]

Actually everything seems correct here, tail flukes, skull shapes, even the fins.

[outer tusk]

uh yeah that's from my guy, Diocles

[copper hill]

İ feel like the first ones belly is a little bit off

[outer tusk]

nah it's good

[runic heart]

He’s got some really good reconstructions

[runic heart]

What about the necks? PoT tylo looks like its neck is raise up a bit, unless it just looks that way cause of the large throat sack thing.

[copper hill]

Throat sack it is

[balmy oyster]

It was very likely the nasal structure thing went up across the whole crest btw, if we’re following what goes on with maiasaura and prosaurolophus

[little mauve]

S. angustirostris shows sulci on the distal tip of the crest that suggests keratinization there according to Sharpe et al 2025

[balmy oyster]

It only looks keratinized at the tip. The entire rest of the nasal structure is grooved.

[outer tusk]

☝️

[balmy oyster]

Another skull that shows the same thing. The visual “bumpiness” seems to extend all the way down the nasal but i doubt this is all keratinization

[little mauve]

Thats what "distal tip" is referring to, yes

[balmy oyster]

Was also commenting for John as well.

[little mauve]

Gotcha, good diagram that image shows it off well

Sharing the paper as well in case anyone missed it, https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.70098

[tough parcel]

Should also be known osteological correlates aren't 100% reliable (which is why I sorta sigh at diagrams that give us what Rex's face "really looks like)

[outer tusk]

what did their rex looked lke?

[fluid inlet]

Like a Rex

[fluid inlet]

What a terrible comparison

[plucky basin]

awh man 😔

[balmy oyster]

It was very unlikely to be like…this.

I do not think a giant predatory dromeosaurid would have had the same feathering as a sparrow.

[charred hearth]

when your basing a marine reptiles behavior and stuff like that, what modern day animal do you guys recommend looking at? i know mammals arent that good of a analog for reptiles , but the only other marine reptiles i can think of are marine iguana's and saltwater crocodiles

[outer tusk]

it would actually look like this, trust

[full lagoon]

Not to mention the arm pose rendering them absolutely useless

[prisma hawk]

You know what’s funny is the feathering on the “naked” Achillo might not be that far off for a dromeosaur of that size.

[little mauve]

marine reptiles were incredibly diverse and likewise probably had incredibly diverse behaviors but we can make some inferences based on fossil evidence, what niches they were occupying, and modern relatives. For instance, we have fossil evidence of live birth being widespread in marine reptiles and the babies they're having are larger than we'd expect for reptiles of their size (they're very much not like dinosaurs or most other reptiles in this respect) so it's very likely they were investing in more parental care than other reptiles. So in that respect they're behaving like marine mammals to some extent based on the limitations of being fully marine. There's also good evidence for social behavior being widespread in marine reptiles so again they're converging on some sharks and most marine mammals in that regard. There are similarities to their relatives too, mosasaurs probably had a forked tongue and possibly some kind of venom or toxic saliva

[balmy oyster]

I still think this utah is one of the best utah artworks there is

[outer tusk]

Fred has/will NEVER miss

[wooden bluff]

Hey can I use the the body of fragilis with a head swap for jimmadseni? or are there better options for jimmadseni

[fluid inlet]

One of my favorites as well

[runic heart]

Hm, is it more plausible that Utahraptor had relatively sparse feathers like this?

[balmy oyster]

We don’t know, but it surely isn’t big sparrow

[runic heart]

Aside from obviously albertosaurus, which creatures in the new Walking with dinosaurs are the most scientifically informed?

[full lagoon]

Honestly I'd say it's not out of the question, especially given its less derived features and inferred climate.

[jade laurel]

Chocobo Theme Death Metal Cover

[outer tusk]

and there's Matt's skeletal of SMA

[runic heart]

Bro why this PoT thumbnail so detailed. Can you really make the graphics look this good? Really makes you appreciate all the lizard scaling on this thing. Cant wait to see the quality and accuracy of future models go up.

I feel like most of the changes needed for current models are all texture related. Also, I heard the pachy in game is the most inaccurate; why is that?

[plucky basin]

probably AI, look at the campto

[bright veldt]

It's basically a theropod with a dome more than having any actual pachycephalosaur anatomy. I don't know if it's the most inaccurate thing, cause kaiwhekea exists. But pachy ain't great either.

[jagged trellis]

kai and metri exist but pachy is p bad ja

[outer tusk]

Metri def top over the innaccuraies of pachy and kai

[runic rover]

Huh? Care to explain what's wrong with Pachy?

[bright veldt]

It's honestly hard to explain with words. I've just seen accurate pachy and it's a night and day difference (ontop of the obvious lack of beak thing).

[runic heart]

So seems like quite a few creatures need complete remodeling to compete with the newer ones, and most if not all of the roster needs new textures.

[runic rover]

Ok I checked the fossil, damn I really liked the rhino-iguana kind of face they gave it...

[runic heart]

Allosaurus tlc has a chance to give it some really nice textures.

[runic rover]

I just hope they make Jimmandesi still with a long face, it's what I like a lot about the Jimmandesi sub.

[rancid dove]

The poor Metri left the RDA laboratory

[runic heart]

How do yall feel about the look of eurhinosaurus? Seems kinda bland to me, but idk what could be added or changed.

[runic rover]

Also idk why Jimmandesi was the thin one and Europaeus was the chonky one, it should have kind of been the opposite since the two "big Al"s were confirmed Jimmandesi.

Same problem with Titan, don't get me wrong, Carolinii sub looks stunning and it's my own personal fave but I'm baffled as of why would they put it as the less huge subs given how it would be meant to represent the atm crown-holder of Carcharodontosaurids.

[outer tusk]

bro depends on the speicmens used

[runic rover]

Aside from the fact that PoT Allo is anax-sized, Jimmandesi average is bulkier and larger than Europaeus average, that's just a fact.

[fossil ingot]

Larger Yes, Bulkier we don't have an exact number
POT Allo is like 11.3m or smth
So its like
Smaller in Length than Big Anax and Fragilis but is Stocky Build lile old Sauro so makes up

[winter marsh]

that campto looks AI

[native kindle]

the better question would be "what did they get right with pachy?" and the answer is not much besides it having a dome head!

[fossil ingot]

Metri and Pachy are rather bad accuracy wise overall

Tylo Mogs All
Titan is....complicated

[runic heart]

How is Titan complicated? I thought it was second to tylo.

[runic rover]

What's with Titan? Last time I checked it's one of the best depictions of Carcharodontosauridae in games

[fossil ingot]

Random is Changing his Titan
And well
It has quite the changes
You will prob see whenever he finishes it

[fossil ingot]

Was yes, and will be till Random publishes his new one
Where it will prob still be good except for few things(blame it on Titan's Bones)

[runic rover]

I need a little more context with this, who's random and what is going on with changing titan? Is official remodeling it?

[fossil ingot]

Nah they POT Won't Change Titan
No need for it
And for Random
You know him as Randomdinos aka the maker of this lad and much more skeletals

[runic rover]

Oh ok, I panicked a little, don't see quite any differences tho...

[fossil ingot]

That is his Current Titan, but he is updating it
And there are some differences with the new one

[thorn grove]

who's randomdinos, never heard of him

[fossil ingot]

New one is not done yet but with what its done you can already tell he evolved like a certain relative in certain part

@thorn grove randomdinos is totally the friends we made along the way...

[runic heart]

So this is a job or hobby of his?

[charred hearth]

can the magical randomdinos make a lingwulong skeletal

[fossil ingot]

Ehhh
Actually idk
Maybe Job to an Extent??
No idea

[fossil ingot]

If you Comission it Prob
Ppl already have Comission him stuff like his Para and Acro

Lingwulong is peak tho

[runic heart]

I mean, did he or is he studying paleontology?

[fossil ingot]

I think he is studying
I forgot

[runic heart]

I feel like you have to be pretty good to be making skeletals of an animal based on any level of fragmentary material.

[tough parcel]

He is studying, however I am working with Big Paleo to make sure he never gets a job because he does not upsize T. rex!

[compact leaf]

how can we be certain random isn’t already in the pocket of big paleo?

[runic heart]

Imagine a paleo database with all up-to-date info and reconstructions and whatnot. Quite the project, but it’d be really neat.

[tough parcel]

https://tenor.com/view/tf2engineer-imposter-it-could-be-you-meme-tf2spy-gif-23428001

Now where is the paper describing BHI 6248 in detail...

[runic heart]

Wasn’t more giga material found at the holotype site? I guess that’s got a paper coming out eventually.

[fossil ingot]

Atp just use Sue and Leave Spino cause otherwise it gets Dwarfed

[charred hearth]

would titanaboa be able to go on land or would it be too massive?

[runic heart]

Prob too heavy

[charred hearth]

so a titanaboa could theroretically beach itself like a whale?

[outer tusk]

yes

[balmy oyster]

Don’t yet, lingwulong needs an actual description to save its life also its a bonebed

[balmy oyster]

https://tenor.com/view/fant4stic-say-that-again-gif-16690486418948643620

[severe yew]

by the way, the existence of all life, including dinosaurs, is a near impossibility

https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18545

[charred hearth]

does any prehestoric hog / pig species match the size of Mamoswin?
2.5 m
291.0 kg

[winter marsh]

no creature matches the proportions of pokemon, most pokemon are blimps

[charred hearth]

is mamoswine suppose to a hog, mastadon or mammoth?

[winter marsh]

all

the pokemon that most closely resembles its actual weight is probably mudsdale

[little mauve]

and yet still a certainty!

[charred hearth]

truly a ice age package

[severe yew]

but not naturally... as it has been taught

something is quite not right, everyone knows that...

[tough parcel]

I'm sure they do

[little mauve]

?

[tough parcel]

(I assume they're trying to imply God exists instead of just "a deity")

[little mauve]

Right, good luck with that lol

[little mauve]

See to turn this into a real experiment you'd need to compare a control universe with universes that contained godlike deities and see if one was more likely to develop life than the other. Unfortunately we only have our universe to compare ourselves to, in which both dinosaurs and humans evolved. Putting their likelihood of evolution both at 100% irrespective of a deity

[charred hearth]

why is it on fire and then also getting carried away by a flood, what happens in march of the dinosaurs

[little mauve]

Pyroclastic flow I imagine

[tough parcel]

Flaming branch landed on it -> fluff caught fire -> volcanic explosion melted the snow on top of the mountain -> ash + melted snow = ash flood -> it was standing in a shallow valley that acted as a funnel for the flood

[little mauve]

https://tenor.com/view/sarcastic-sarcasm-terminator-thumbs-up-gif-13726704

[tough parcel]

We need to bring back this style of writing for documentaries

PrePlanet was cool and all but cmon, we need that flair

[little mauve]

agreed, PhP is too cozycore

[tough parcel]

"He who strikes the king must strike to kill...or pay the price." 🗣️ 🗣️ 🔥 🔥 🔥

[little mauve]

surviving earth seems like it'll have that old school edge possibly

[tough parcel]

Pleading, sobbing, crying that it does

Honestly PP was a better outlet for that old-school dramaticism to come out simply because it's majority "made up" stories but Ig SE might also be that

[little mauve]

I think the producers have a better idea about storytelling, given what they did with WWD and the inherent drama of mass extinction

I feel like anti-awesomebro went too far, dinosaurs are friggin awesome in the most literal sense, I don't want to see them sleeping

[compact leaf]

I’m fine with seeing them in more lowkey situations like php but it’s nice to have both ways in moderation, not entirely one or the other

[bright veldt]

I think the criticism with PhP lacking violence was overblown until Ice Age.

[little mauve]

still haven't seen Ice Age cause I'm broke after Christmas and not as into mammals but I've heard similar things

[tough parcel]

Tbh I think S1 is passable

S2 is where you start to see the criticism really take foot

Ice Age is just...yea wow

[bright veldt]

Take all of the arguably nitpicks in the first two seasons and make them actual issues. That's Ice Age.

[compact leaf]

pretty much

[little mauve]

Interesting, I did see Naish's point about showing the different lifestyles of mammals versus dinosaurs. Life being cheap in the Mesozoic, but also I'm kind of sick of that dogma too.

[tough parcel]

I will agree however I will never forgive S2 for hyping up Tarbosaurus as the apex predator and known sauropod hunter

And then having the sauropod die via tripping

[bright veldt]

Yeah no there's not to say that it isn't valid in a few cases. That and the troodontid hunting birds are the most glaring examples.

[little mauve]

THANK YOU

[tough parcel]

I understand an aversion to gore, understandable, but cmon 🥀

That scene was the biggest blueball I've had

[little mauve]

That's why we need good indie creators unafraid of portraying the carnage of brontophagy

[compact leaf]

they went for that but it felt like they really didn’t showcase any unique lifestyles or behaviors at all, like no descriptions of how their adaptations work or why they do things just a “family survival” over and over

[runic heart]

[compact leaf]

all that said, I liked the giganto segment a lot even if they oversized it

[bright veldt]

That's the big thing. Prehistoric Planet was noted for showing off a lot of things that people didn't think of with dinosaurs before. Ice Age was very by-the-numbers to the point of being very repetitive. There's too many "following a child and it nearly evades death" scenarios.

[tough parcel]

The amount of "Wow, they actually did this/looked like this?" I had from the first two seasons dropped like a rock with Ice Age

It then turned into "Wow, there's a lot of mating in the ice age "

[little mauve]

gotta stay warm

[compact leaf]

obligatory comment about how wwb had multiple scenes of full frontal

[little mauve]

I think we're running around the obvious fact that dinosaurs are cooler and more interesting than mammals, who pretty much just mate and raise their babies all day

[tough parcel]

Perhaps this is commentary that Ice Age was so by-the-books that the only scenes that stood out was the mating...

[compact leaf]

the ice age (and cenozoic as a whole) has so many cool animals there just has to be actual focus on unique behaviors and ecosystems

[granite thicket]

The biggest problem with php ice age is lack of name dropping tho
I think the sequences were mainly alright besides the one with homotherium and mammoths and the plot armor babies

[tough parcel]

Take a shot every time Loki says "ice age"

[compact leaf]

even without the no name dropping there’s basically no information or background given on the animals, makes it feel a lot more like eye candy

[tough parcel]

Perhaps it would've been better if it was a Crocodile Hunter-Prehistoric Park hybrid show where Nigel teaches us...

[outer tusk]

yes

[outer tusk]

I feel like that undoubtly concerning in my opinion but I guess someone would say otherwise

[granite thicket]

Btw I heard some people say php ice age megalania's tail is too short
Is this correct?

[tough parcel]

This is called "vibes-based guessing" because I don't think we ever see the tail in a shot that would indicate such

[charred hearth]

can i be honest? i think when dinosaurs roamed america deserves more praise

[outer tusk]

do we have any notable feathered dinosaurs from Campanian

[little mauve]

we don't have many, if any, Campanian rocks with the right preservation for feathers but there were plenty of lineages present in the Campanian presumed or extremely likely to be feathered

There are Ornithomimus specimens from the Upper Cretaceous of Alberta, not sure if Campanian or Maastrichtian, with arm feathers preserved

[quaint arrow]

Hi

[light osprey]

The specimen from Dinosaur Park is the most well-described one

[little mauve]

thank you, that I'd say is the most notable feathered dino with direct evidence in the Campanian

[warped peak]

The correct answer is that the Ice Age has boring mammals compared to most of the Cenozoic

All of the unique things that were beautiful and alien to us are already gone by now for the most part

[runic heart]

I mean, haven’t there been recent studies that show heavy Campanian glaciation?

[little mauve]

yes, the Barrika glaciation 82.8–80.96 Ma. You don't need a glaciation to have feathered dinosaurs though, plenty of birds live in tropical climates today with full feathers

[runic heart]

Well yes but it’s just another reason why some animals would have retained feather for longer I guess.

[outer tusk]

idk

[runic heart]

I believe there was a paper recently that brought up the possibility that Campanian glaciations were more extreme than Pleistocene ones.

[wind prairie]

"but he who strikes the king must strike to kill" 🗣️ 🔥🔥💯

jfc I'm an idiot I didn't realize you made this joke already

[little mauve]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825225003125#s0110 the authors say it's comparable to records of Cenozoic glaciation

[zenith mason]

Hi guys I'm new here in this discord how do I sign in from path of Titans

[runic heart]

Surviving earth 🙏

[zenith mason]

I put my email and password but game shows that incorry password or email

[balmy oyster]

Stellar sea cow 😠

[runic heart]

Honestly have high hopes since they actually updated their dimetrodon with scales after that paper released, and its concept art already didn’t have them.

[warped peak]

Stellar's sea cow comes from giant tusked manatees

[balmy oyster]

Speaking of tusks

Odobenocetops!! Needs more people to see it existed

[runic heart]

If yall were to just be able to see and know what 1 prehistoric animal really looked like in its entirety, what would it be.

[tough parcel]

Rex or Gorgo

[runic heart]

I’d want to say those two, or some kind of basal carnosaur.

I’m leaning more towards basal carnosaur or Triassic theropod though since we already have a sick look at Alberto/gorgo.

[wind prairie]

maybe therizinosaurus, or bahariasaurus logically
but my heart says allosaurus, stegosaurus, t rex, triceratops, just a really popular one

[jade laurel]

Hrmmm🤔
You know what they say about never meeting your heroes?

[runic heart]

And knowing what a basal member of any group looks like would really help understand the rest of them.

[charred hearth]

amarga or baja

[tough parcel]

https://tenor.com/view/why-didn't-i-think-of-that-mrboss-smiling-friends-frowning-friends-of-course-gif-14810131280811766713

[runic heart]

This made me chuckle

[jade laurel]

Argentavis was probably glorious just getting by on concept alone

[tough parcel]

Maybe the real game plan should be some glupdumbo that I dislike...this way my favorites are untouched and the opps are ruined...

[stiff osprey]

I vote Bahariasaurus for this reason

[jade laurel]

Keeping in mind that these were all real animals who don't owe us anything as fans, I suppose any response is equally valid.

[runic heart]

Chilantaisaurus.

[jade laurel]

We already have great previews from the fossil record of Sinosauropteryx, so I'm pretty confident that I'd like the look of the living Panda Chicken

[runic heart]

Imagine picking edmontosaurus to be funny, and it’s actually just blue. Like the Wwd one.

[balmy oyster]

Maraapunisaurus.

By all means, gimme. (One of the largest and weirdest megafaunal dinosaurs)

[outer tusk]

Piveteausaurus

[wind prairie]

tbh just knowing exactly what t rex looked like would be a huge cultural thing

[thorn grove]

As cool as it would be to see Dinosaurs irl, I feel like the fact that you can kind of pick and choose what you imagine they looked like is half the fun with them in a broader cultural sense

[hardy sentinel]

Paleontology rewind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4B6MqMg-Xc

[mighty willow]

Yooooooooo everyone
I have been studying maastrictian prehistoric life for a while now and I think I got an accuracy review on Prehistoric Planet 1!
The accuracy review lands at 4.6/5
There are a few outdated bits, some nitpicks and a singular narration error
If anyone wants to know the issues, tell me

Also why does pot still have laten named laten despite it now being considered a junior synonym of Stenonychosaurus Inequalis?
Sure I get that people are more used to this name more than stenon but still
I regard pot as a pretty solid game when it comes to scientific accuracy on fauna, so I am kinda sad about the whole laten stenon thing

[plush fossil]

Can't the same be said for miragaia or whatever? Anyways idk but at the end of the day it's up to the devs on what they wanna add/remove

[hardy sentinel]

Funny thing, Mira was made undeniably valid a few days ago

Sum about 22+ distinct features that Dacentrurus doesn't have

[hardy sentinel]

The laten stenon thing isn't really cared about as much because at the end of the day it's just another troodontid with naming issues

[plush fossil]

Really? That's neat

[balmy oyster]

does make you wonder what else is in the same situation as miragaia but is still in need of a paper like this

[hardy sentinel]

if I had a nickel for every time a smaller genus was confused with a bigger genus and had controversies for over a decade, but was solved in the final quarter of 2025, i'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice

[umbral socket]

POT has a very large fanbase, so changing it can easily cause issues. If Laten was removed or changed to Stenon, all you'd hear from players would be "Where did Laten go?" If it were me, I wouldn't want to change a playable that I had worked hard on. Even if its invalid, it can still remain somewhat accurate and fun to play with so I personally don't see a problem with it

[hardy sentinel]

to be fair Laten was kind of an odd choice to add in the first place, in the same paper it was described in it's validity was questioned not two sentences later

[tough parcel]

Elaborate on this

[granite thicket]

Spino

[hardy sentinel]

Megalodon

[umbral socket]

Ngl I didn't know what laten was until POT 😭 It feels a bit obscure to me

[hardy sentinel]

It was a known thing in the paleontology community because it was one of the big three Troodontids that killed Troodon's validity

[bright veldt]

As a taxa it lasted like 4 years.

[plush fossil]

Troodon found dead

[umbral socket]

Rip Troodon >.>

[tough parcel]

Good riddance! The guy who named it is actually awful so sinking it into Stenonychosaurus is great

I sure do hope American troodontids keep stable!

[granite thicket]

At least pectinodon will last I think

[bright veldt]

lol

[hardy sentinel]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-paleontology/article/troodontid-specimens-from-the-cretaceous-two-medicine-formation-of-montana-usa-and-the-validity-of-troodon-formosus/3E58F1FDA3FE53DE569E0D0B20E79F22

Cambridge is tryna establish a neotype tho so one can hope that Latenivenatrix and Stenonychosaurus die in a fire

[tough parcel]

The neotype of Troodon, famously without controversy and issue…

[bright veldt]

The paper's really funny though. Like they acknowledge the buttload of problems with doing that but are just like "Can this happen anyway? Pretty please?".

[hardy sentinel]

shhhhh

[granite thicket]

Its kronosaurus eiectus situation all over again

[balmy oyster]

isn't the neotype kind of...not adequate for being a neotype though?

[hardy sentinel]

Every time I eat a ray finned fish I pray to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus for Troodon to become valid

[bright veldt]

Eh this situation is actually a bit complicated. Eiectus was funny because everyone just went "That's dumb" and moved on.

[tough parcel]

Spino too huh?

[balmy oyster]

it would be so much better to create a neotype that was found preferably from the same formation, maybe even locality.

[hardy sentinel]

perhaps

lads i'm sure if I confirmation bias this hard enough it will become true, like Nanotyrannus did

[granite thicket]

Yeah kinda funny how the paper came out and everyone were like nah

[balmy oyster]

gsp is reaching a point where other people in the science field are also going to eiectus his work and the problem is solved by doing nothing

[bright veldt]

Unfortunately his isn't even funny because of how it disrespects a lot of people.

[balmy oyster]

hence why I propose Eiectusing him.

he doesn't respect everyone putting in genuine work and is trying to slime in his own name in literature? keep going, don't bat an eye

[granite thicket]

Honestly, even gsp's skeletals and mass estimates arent good nowadays
He's entering the david peters arc kinda

[balmy oyster]

(now obviously this can't just, happen, but I do feel more and more people will start opting to fully ignoring his work as it effectively does not matter with what he writes)

[balmy oyster]

poorly traces over fossils and uses both his & illustrations in general for descriptions and osteological examination instead of...the actual material. which he clearly is capable of accessing and looking over.

[queen vortex]

What bird do u think might have been therezinosaurus

[granite thicket]

Dont forget the human perception based analysis he did on tyrannosaurus specimans lol

[balmy oyster]

emu

[granite thicket]

In terms of looks, or niche?

[queen vortex]

Looks

[balmy oyster]

the "these lacrimal tips look similar enough compared to other lacrimal tips" paper.

[granite thicket]

Prob less hairy version of ratites

Btw What even is this acro lol

[dire stag]

Why did someone come up with the idea that the pubis bone is what differentiates ornischian and saurischian dinosaurs? Why use that 1 bone as a reference point

[queen vortex]

This may sound stupid but since penguins live in the arctic does that technically mean that penguins use to be a dinosaur that lived in the snow like yutyrannus

[bright veldt]

my brain

[balmy oyster]

randoms acro if it didn't eat anything for 6 months

[granite thicket]

I mean there was a paper that suggested an alternate way to classify dino clades that puts ornithoschians and theropods in one group and sauropods in the other

[lavish frigate]

Theoretically speaking, are there any actual rules on names for genera? I thought that you had to use Latin or Greek but now people are taking names from other languages more recently

So i guess what I’m saying is can I just name a genus of hadrosaur “George Bingus” and it be accepted

[queen vortex]

Shrink wrap

[balmy oyster]

isn't it the entire pubic region, illium ischium and pubis n all? but also because it's the best way to tell apart entire clades since limbs, skull bones, vertebrae, anything else really can make it more iffy and confusion

[granite thicket]

Thats exactly what chinese r doing rn
So you can prob get away with it as long as that name isnt already taken

[bright veldt]

Latin and greek is just the standard. In theory you can name a genus/species anything so long as it hasn't been used before. It's just not scientific to name your new species "Bobs burgers"

[lavish frigate]

Knowing paleontology and cool names George Bingus is already ascribed to a bug

[granite thicket]

I mean we already have "big paul", "weird wings", and a freaking gremlin
Why not name a new species like that

[bright veldt]

Those first two are just the meanings. That's a bit different.

[granite thicket]

Yi qi is just weird wings in chinese tho
So to a chinese its pretty much like that lol

[lavish frigate]

My goofy ah going to get a PHD so I can name a new genus of Saurolophine Peter Griffin

[balmy oyster]

i yearn for the day something like "gremlin" does somehow get an entire skeleton to its name and it now holds the mantle as best preserved neoceratopsian thing other than psittaco, forever called "gremlin"

[bright veldt]

Shoutout to the sabertooth genus named "Yoshi". idk I just think it's really cute cause it's named after the guy's cat.

[granite thicket]

Would I get muted if I mention the genus name of a certain plesiosaur btw

[balmy oyster]

erm it wasn't a mammal either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lavish frigate]

That is very cute

A cat is a complete and utter waste of the genus name Yoshi though 💀 this is dinosaurus levels of a name being used for the wrong thing

[dire stag]

Sauropods + ornithischians and theropods would make more sense intuitively but ik there were omnivores/herbivores among the theropods

[dire stag]

I think its just the hip-bone thing

[balmy oyster]

you'd think, but early neotheropods and early neo prosauropods honestly look quite alike

[granite thicket]

Btw someone named a synapsid varanosaurus
Tf

[dire stag]

Thats what im wondering though, just because that thing is a synapsid like us it is closer related to us than to dinos, but why is 1 hole vs 2 holes in the skull (sauropsids/diapsids) the reason? Why is that the relevant factor

[balmy oyster]

dinosaurus.

[dire stag]

Yes the earliest sauropods were carnis i think

[granite thicket]

Varnosaurus is worse since its literally monitor lizard in latin

[balmy oyster]

cus thats how it is

both skull types can be seen from across all related descendants and ties back to these 2 skull types. pattern recognition and evolutionary patterns will get you far

[granite thicket]

Eoraptor which is a basal saurosuchian closer to sauropodmorphs was omnivorous I think

[lavish frigate]

In a phylogeny that puts theropods and ornithischians together, where do Silesaurs go

[dire stag]

Yes but it has the sail in common with spinosaurinae/-ids/-ia (idk which latin suffix would be relevant here) + probably has also a lot more in common with them, so idk

[balmy oyster]

wrong reply?

[granite thicket]

Sir sail is not a basal trait
However smth like holes in the skull originate much further down in the family tree

[balmy oyster]

oh he's talking about dimetridon specifically..

saying "both have sail so both closely related?" is a disastrous take, regardless on your knowledge of phylogeny. convergent evolution is a thing that exists & also the two are separated by entirely separated eras.

[granite thicket]

Im more closely related to theri than a trex is to a theri cause we both stand upright ahh argument

[lavish frigate]

But Rex is a mostly featherless biped, therefore it is mostly a man And more related to you

[balmy oyster]

humans have canines and some synapsids have specified canines

therefore my sister species is inostrancevia

[granite thicket]

I dont have scales and kronosaurus also doesnt have scales
Thus Im its closest relative

[dire stag]

What about teeth, skin/scales etc.? If they're closer to dinosaurs/crocs etc. In that regard, why does an extra hole in the skull override that? Because that step in the evolution happened earlier?

[granite thicket]

Yes its a trait that happened way down there which split up those clades to begin with
Also dimetrodon has hetrodont teeth unlike majority of diapsids

[balmy oyster]

teeth are super variable, we mistake them frequently. skin impressions don't preserve 99.9% of the time.

as silly as it sounds, holes in the skull (or any minute differences in skeletal anatomy really) can be extremely telling for where something fits in evolution.

[bright veldt]

the anapsid part didn't age well

[balmy oyster]

true

[granite thicket]

Speaking of anapsids, where to turtles fit rn
Also, are pareiasaurs still considered as their relatives?

[dire stag]

Mhm ok
And yes i guess i was talking hypothetically, if dimetrodon had more things in common with them than with us why would it make sense to point to the skull detail, that was basically my point

[balmy oyster]

was just looking around, it seems turtles are considered diapsids but lost one pair of the holes some time down the line

[dire stag]

I didnt know anapsids were a thing

[bright veldt]

tbf that's because they aren't anymore

[granite thicket]

I meant like r they closer to squamates or archosaurs?

[dire stag]

Well still cool to know

[bright veldt]

turtles are now considered diapsids, closer to archosaurs than lizards

[balmy oyster]

oh, by archosaurs currently

archosauromorphs reign supreme

[dire stag]

Palaeo youtubers should make videos on phylogeny/taxonomy itself (what's even the difference), like what we talked about or what makes a genus/species etc.

[granite thicket]

I mean squamates are still bad ass

[balmy oyster]

fortunately they do, clint's reptiles makes videos about all sorts of clades and they seem to be pretty accurate and informative

[bright veldt]

I'd reccomend Clint's Reptiles. He has an entire series relating to phylogeny.

[granite thicket]

Yeah his videos are good

[dire stag]

The reason i started to get interested in this is exactly because of his videos, but i mean a more general video (without it being about a SPECIFIC clade/species etc.). Know what i mean? Like in order to be considered a genus, what does it take? What points are needed to be considered a species?

[balmy oyster]

those are good questions, unfortunately I don't know any from the top of my head but if I find one I'll lyk

[dire stag]

Yeah that'd be nice, videos are much better than reading stuff because this is kinda abstract for me xd

[granite thicket]

Im sure genus and species are pretty much arbitrary atm
Since theres no set standard for splitting
Thats why there are "splitters" and "lumpers" in paleontology

[dire stag]

I only know of dimetrodon being a mammal because of clint i think haha
I wouldve thought its a dino for sure

[granite thicket]

Dimetrodon is not exactly a mammal
Its a synapsid but its not a true mammal

[dire stag]

Oh i see, that makes it a bit easier. Like the word reptile or mummy (just got done watching his latest videos on mummy dinos)

[dire stag]

Its closer relation to mammals than to dinosaurs then

[granite thicket]

Kinda funny how about 50% of mummy dinos are edmontos

[dire stag]

They are amazing like the psittaco but the borealopelta has to be the best one

[balmy oyster]

and yet ITS STILL ONE OF THE MOST POORLY DESCRIBED DINOSAURS WHAT ARE WE DOING PALEONTOLOGY

[bright veldt]

“Stem-mammal” is the best term really. It gets the mammal relation vs reptile point across without conflating it.

[plain spade]

Yeah isn't the other few we know of large hadrosaurs too? I know there's one for Hypacrosaurus as well, and Corythosaurus I believe too.

[runic rover]

I take "X is a young Y" less seriously than a JW movie, it was a clown practice started by Horner of all people and it was proven wrong more times than right... Hell I think it was never even proven right to begin with!

[balmy oyster]

Horner looking at everything he tried to synonymize together based on ontogeny in the hell creek crumble and become their own thing anyways

[runic rover]

We all know he did to laugh at Bakker

[balmy oyster]

so much for that

[mighty willow]

Thats kinda weird now that I think about it

[granite thicket]

At least he was right about dracorex

[ashen wedge]

I believe that Bakker did say that he has access to some material not released to the public on the matter, so it’s possible that this could be wrong, although I doubt it

[runic rover]

Again, is it? Because to me it sounds again like Nanotyrannus.

[granite thicket]

If Im not wrong, dracorex being a young pachy is a general consensus while stygi is a bit controversial

[mighty willow]

Pretty sure that the general consensus as of now is that it either was a sub adult stage of Pachycephalosaurus Wy. Or was another species known as Pachycephalosaurus Spifiner
The latter is more supported as the spikes popping out from the dome-like structure of Pachycephalosaurus couldn't really re absorb it's self back at all
Though this is still scientifically debated
Hope this helped!

[granite thicket]

Thx

[runic rover]

General consensus has the same value of fried air unless there is a good evidence of it, only serves to get in the way with unnecessary bias imho

[mighty willow]

I meant in for the scientific community, in which some support P. Spinifer while others support the sub adult thing

You are correct in that sense though

[mighty willow]

My other message literally has the question if anyone wants to know the problems with that show
Read it

[stable sun]

They're not Archosauromorphs though, they're more basal

[stable sun]

Outside of dinosauria however a phylogeny with Ornithoscelida is wrong

[stable sun]

Archosauromorph relatives and no

[stable sun]

Buriolestes, the basalmost sauropodomorph, was a carnivore

[stable sun]

It was the difference that was used for these clade's names

[stable sun]

Yeah, but that paper was wrong.

[stable sun]

Baryonyx doesn't have a sail but I severely doubt Dimetrodon is more similar to Spinosaurus than Bary

[outer tusk]

Dimetrodon being similar to Spinosaurus,I want to die gng 😭

[mighty willow]

To make things worse, apparently Dimetrodon was closer to mammals and by extension HUMANS rather than dinosaurs!

[outer tusk]

YDRWA already said this like 12 years ago gng

[spice latch]

https://tenor.com/view/wtf-gif-11403402916845629606

I mean technically it is similar just not related, right?

Oh no feilongs typing a lot I’m scared ;-;

[ionic crescent]

@granite thicket Dracorex is the juvenile form of both, sitting as Pachycephalosaurus sp. Cause has extra epiocipital (spikes) displaying some variance like chasmosaurines do

Meanwhile Stygimoloch (Pachycephalosaurus spinifer) sits as some separated species from P. wyomingensis, due to the geological time in between each other (just like Triceratops prorsus and horridus)

[spice latch]

Oh thank god it wasn’t towards my statement

[wide garnet]

nerds puru would handle a rex on land like a baby

[ionic crescent]

Both are correct xd

Cause Stygimoloch fossil is not adult, is subadult

But it would be a subadult of the P. spinifer species, which means the spikes likely grew bigger/longer

[lavish frigate]

Thanks for the info, also cool pfp

[stable sun]

Thanks

[spice latch]

Omg guys we finally figured out who dess is in deltarune

Shes a TORVOSAURUS

[opaque kayak]

Fasolasuchus tenax by Literallymiguel

[green helm]

deino

[craggy trench]

Nice selfie very demure very mindful

[green helm]

nah this isnt actually a selfie tho

[balmy oyster]

you’re right. How could you take a selfie when you’ve been dead for 70 million years.

[green helm]

exactly man

some funny figure took it

[wide garnet]

who would win on land a 6 ton puru or a 10 ton rex

[green helm]

rex

[wide garnet]

Puru easy wins

[green helm]

how

[wide garnet]

Purus skin can withstand bites off other purus which have a 200k newton bite whilst a trex has 60k newtons, also the tail of a crocodile is very strong as they use it to swim and can leap out of water with it. They can use that tail to slap the trex as it has a very high gravity knocking the rex over and killing it from the drop

[wind prairie]

I wouldn't be so sure

[green helm]

when was a study that said puru had 200k newton bite

[charred hearth]

how accurate is the types of tylos attack? ie its ramming and stuff

[flint river]

Likely pretty accurate
Larger mosasaurs have thick, robust skulls like a tyrannosaur and likely rammed into larger prey to stun them before crunching (at least to my knowledge)
disclaimer that ofc it doesn’t apply to all and we don’t for definitive proof

[hardy sentinel]

So are Stygimoloch and Dracorex valid?

[balmy oyster]

Well…yes but no.

juvi stygimoloch harhar

[wide garnet]

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0031781

[green helm]

thats so much text

oh its made in 2012 thats why it says 200k newton

[wide garnet]

The date of the paper has no effect on its reliability, a friend of mine knows some of the co authors of this paper personally as well.

[green helm]

are you this is up to date tho

[full lagoon]

On land I'd think the Tyrannosaurus could simply pin it down and have its way with the purru

[outer tusk]

they kind of do