paleontology

[mental cloak]

I hate how this is just not a meme anymore
Ppl seein animals as video game characters
Like come onebe serious one time buddy

[obsidian tangle]

What?! He’s gone?!

[runic heart]

Yeah…

[queen oar]

@hallow spear what if I did a Fan-TLC Concept Art for Stegosaurus?

[frail robin]

Best modern portrayal of Stegosaurus

[orchid lynx]

you have some songs? i can barely remember them

[frail robin]

https://youtu.be/kcQhUKrfHyo?list=PLXvYahlhCK7HCP4zAt2E1v2-_d4Ukvg_-
Here's my favourite one

[orchid lynx]

nice did he make Big Al's death music too? i get goosies 😄 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s435kOpeVM8

[misty scarab]

Battle at the Saltplains

[mental cloak]

Do we know if Stegosaurus actualy layed eggs?
I hear DinoGuy talkin about that in his new video about the stegosaurus
And he mentioned that we still dont have any fossilized stego eggs
And he might suggested stego gave birth but idk if thats actualy a concensous in the paleofield as a whole
Could anyone gimme some light?

[dense spindle]

anteos new proportions look tuff asf

[kindred night]

There is 0 evidence for Stegosaurs giving live birth. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We have no definitive eggs for 99% of non-avian dinosaurs but that doesn't mean they all gave live birth. It just means that they lived in areas where eggshells can't really fossilize.

[balmy oyster]

Every other dinosaur has laid eggs. Why on earth would stegosaurus be exempt?

[paper parcel]

Would be funny

[balmy oyster]

true

[paper parcel]

Average permian animal

[undone rapids]

Maybe stegosaur thagomizers were primarily for breaking out of egg shells!

[misty scarab]

ah yes built-in pickaxes

[runic heart]

What happened. What did I miss.

Oh wait… 💀

[paper parcel]

alot of things animals have are multipurpose, like those "horns" on giraffes also working to carry pollen

[dense spindle]

im working on a composite skeletal of anteosaurus, the limbs are a lot shorter than most depictions you see of anteosaurus cause im cross scaling adult specimens. The old anteo reconstructions are all based on microanteosaurus parvus which is a synonym of anteo and is TINY like bro is an INFANT (its skull is 20cm long). It isnt suprising that thing had proportionately long limbs as it was a lanky juvenile, the osteology reports that different parts of anteosaurus's skeleton grew at different times so yeah using the adult postcrania material (based on "paranteosaurus" anteosaurus synonym, 57 cm skull is much more reliable) (all of them had preserved femurs so cross scaling is ez) gets a much lower slung almost komodo dragon like animal

and then I just scaled it to the largest material we have of anteo which is a dentary that scales to around an 83-84cm skull

obviously heavy wip but the final product will be peak

[mental cloak]

Idk i was just curious
I mean some reptiles do give life birth

[fossil ingot]

Peak
Totally best we have for a Stego Dorsal ngl

[mental cloak]

I like this guy
He was a saber tooth situation there

[mental cloak]

Also would their eggshells be soft?

[misty scarab]

absolutely

[little mauve]

It's possible some dinosaurs had softshell eggs, we don't know, it could be the reason certain clades are underrepresented in the egg fossil record

[topaz shell]

Doesn’t protoceratops have like fossilized embryos but the eggs aren’t?

[mental cloak]

Oh yeah
Nakes sense
I like to think that some more basal dinosaurs had softshell eggs

[little mauve]

Yes, there's a biofilm around them that probably indicates a soft eggshell

[little mauve]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2412-8 very possible

[queen oar]

@mental cloak why are you green?

[native kindle]

[soft crow]

@cedar tangle

[cedar tangle]

Ye but like they reconstructed it like it was a komodo dragon

They could add some details to the head

[icy lagoon]

to be fair it's thought that komodo dragons are the same thing but affected by insular dwarfism

[cedar tangle]

No i mean irl it prolly looked like that but for the game they could

[paper parcel]

Official roster if it was good🥹

[mental cloak]

https://tenor.com/view/kinger-green-i'm-so-green-kinger-tadc-gif-11160199225721432693

[mental cloak]

Morrison formation:the game

[frigid delta]

i miss the time where Allosaurus anax still have its Saurophaganax name
now the name is got transferred by a sauropod
#RipSaurophaganaxTheTheropod

[balmy oyster]

Ngl this chart’s a little dated, there’s been some more species since then & some are either smaller or no longer exist

[charred hearth]

why has no one made a 1 to 1 scale of a large sauropod like argentinasaurus like they have for quetz and megalania?

[balmy oyster]

The thing in front is alamosaurus. (Or at least alamo adjacent)

Its limbs are taller than a palaleoxodon 😭

[mental cloak]

Uhm
Big

[topaz shell]

Big and very expensive, pretty sure

[queen oar]

Pretty sure latests works on the Phylogeny of Monitor Lizards found V. priscus to be a sister taxa to V. salvadorii ( If my memory is betraying me, then probably as a very close relative to V. salvadorii )

[true juniper]

Have any thyreophoran eggs been found

[opaque quail]

I understand these aren't super paleo accurate or anything like that but I really need to know if that Triceratops frill is too long.

It can't be that long in any actual trike fossils right

[tender dove]

They're blue

[tribal sky]

Idk how 100% correct it is

[ashen wedge]

Question, what about Brontosaurus being valid? Since I am confused about it due to it being the “name” for Apatosaurus for so long

[tribal sky]

All of the photos are based on the natural history museum on London

[runic rover]

Yup, they returned

[undone rapids]

Maybe not that much, Torosaurus has the longest frill iirc and it gets a bit close

[tribal sky]

I wanna fight that

[opaque quail]

Your telling me the accidentaly gave a triceratops a frill longer than the longest land animal skull in history💔

[tribal sky]

😭

[runic rover]

How TF did horner even think it would be an elder trike?! The entire skull is HEAVILY different from Trike!

[ashen wedge]

Horner also thought T-Rex was purely a scavenger (although yes he did try rewriting history to say that he only presented the other side of T-Rex being a scavenger part of the time, but that lying sack of crap has stated in his own documentary that it was a scavenger purely)

[runic rover]

Ngl I kinda like Torosaurus, I used to not like it, call it "trike from temu" or something... Idk it just looked pretty enough for me to actually change my mind

[undone rapids]

Torosaurus and Denversaurus are really the forgotten big guys from late cret murica

[fossil ingot]

And its also thought that Komodo is not its closest relative
Meg Sucks

[wintry sluice]

How does meg suck, its still the largest (terrestrial) lizard we know of and probably had at least some contact with the first Australians lmao

[fossil ingot]

Its Material Sucks and we don't even know what its closest relative probably is
Tho Komodo as of recently seems to not be the closest
So then Again
Its Sucks in that Aspect

[icy lagoon]

dang it just keeps changing

last thing I heard about meg was on a YouTube a couple months back

[icy lagoon]

I blame Australia for being a horrible place for fossils... the wet season absolutely destroys any exposed fossils

like wdym it goes from being as dry as a desert to being submerged in 1 meter deep water

[paper parcel]

Jurassic ahh weather

[mental cloak]

That's a truceratops,bruv!/j

[coral forge]

its a giant perentie, who cares about material when the animal is that awesome

[green helm]

how much does gorgosaurus libratus weight

[fossil ingot]

The Holotype is like 2.9t or smth, the Bigger Femur is like +3t

[green helm]

can you send me the link to it or a image

[green helm]

thank you very much

[fossil ingot]

The Other has a Femur of like 1.09m vs the Holotype's 1.04m
So you can get it to like 8.9m and like +3t

Lowkey a Big Fella
(This iirc is scaled to the 1.09m femur)

[green helm]

another question,what are the sizes for daspletosaurus wilsoni and daspletosaurus torosus

[fossil ingot]

For Torosus
If we base it off Randoms Skeletal than like 3.1-3.4t
Really depends the Dorsal Width, 3.1t is using Dan's Dasp Dorsal
Pete III wouldn't count, still unknown what it is
For Wilsoni I am not entirely sure its size
Prob something close to Torosus or smaller than it

[green helm]

ty, im asking cause im creating a scan for deinosuchus

[fossil ingot]

Ohh

Deino loves Dasps
Truly

[green helm]

deino craves dasps for hes protein gains

i have one more!!! how big is probrachylophosaurus bergei and corythosaurus

[fossil ingot]

Corytho's Holotype is basically 3t
Idk if there is a bigger specimen, prob is

[green helm]

i forgot to ask if you can send da source of it

[fossil ingot]

And idk about Pro

[mental cloak]

I forgot how tall was acro's neural spines💀

[steep atlas]

A lot of muscle anchored to them

[mental cloak]

Yes!

[steep atlas]

Prob my second favorite megatheropod

[mental cloak]

My fav megatherapod will ever be spinosaurus
He's just so cool

[steep atlas]

He is very cool, but for me nothing will beat tyrannosaurus

[mental cloak]

I like trex
I mean he is the most famous dinosaurs tho
And one of the most impressive creatures the world have ever seen

[frigid delta]

in ur opinion, what are the chances for Laelaps to comeback as a valid tyrannosaur?

[still prairie]

Laelaps is just drypto iirc?

[tough parcel]

Erm it's a dog...

[mental cloak]

I think thats the name of the tyranosaur too

[frigid delta]

https://tenor.com/view/when-you-die-on-a-25-kill-streak-gif-211098780021757312

[coral forge]

casuarius is low 4t and intermedius is high 3t
Iirc they're like 4.2 and 3.7 respectively?

[green helm]

can national geographic be accurate with their research?

[ionic crescent]

XD intermedius, dude is indeed average size

Such funny name

[fossil ingot]

Depends the specimen prob, the Holotype of Casuarius is basically 3t

[queen oar]

Didn't known there was a more updated version of that chart

[mental cloak]

How dunkleosteous dunken those basketball shots?

[misty scarab]

dunkin’ them donuts

[coral forge]

yeah, casuarius holotype is one of the largest, but not THE largest

[coral forge]

the fact that it was named after how average it is despite not even being average for a lambeosaur

[halcyon cobalt]

I knew being Triassic krakenpilled would eventually pay off somehow

I think some of my first messages on this discord were about the Triassic kraken

ahh I miss talking in this chat

I miss being very interested in paleo

[cloud dagger]

I’m always interested in paleo but more like in paleozoic plants and aquatic inverts, dinos are a bit boring

[halcyon cobalt]

high iq activities

[mental cloak]

Dunkleolosaurus

[runic heart]

Makes sense, considering it’s spinosaur vomit.

[opaque kayak]

https://tenor.com/view/wong-why-is-he-true-gif-11437534947926573719

[mint spindle]

Case #9703 @gaunt frost has been warned.
Reason: Invite link.

[stable sun]

https://tenor.com/view/no-correlation-xy-dots-gif-7901710

[opaque kayak]

https://tenor.com/view/worlds-hardest-game-gif-27455204

[misty scarab]

such elegance

[runic heart]

I’ve probably asked a similar question before, but why the difference between the proportions of the Prehistoric Planet dreadnoughtus and something like say the haolonggood dreadnoughtus?

And does neck to body ratio really differ that much across related giant titanosaurs? Patagotitan here seems to be more “balanced”.

[outer tusk]

PHP s just overweight. also better references for both patagotitan and "Alamosaurus"

[balmy oyster]

PhP utilizes a tad bit much of softer tissue, so some things may look more ‘wonkier’ than usually

And neck - body ratio does definitely shift between some species but overall it’s nothing too spectacular compared to neosauropods or diplodocoids for lognokosaurs & related

[outer tusk]

OMFG YOU JUST SAID WHAT I SAID but louder!

[balmy oyster]

Yes because discord took two business days to send my message

[runic heart]

Aight, so what’s the better skeletal for dreadnoughtus then.

[charred hearth]

i wanna see y'all box

[outer tusk]

what

[balmy oyster]

Bricks should be good, ik random’s edited his for a size chart but idk if he posted that ver

[stiff osprey]

never finished it no

[ionic linden]

another year.. another change to spino

[balmy oyster]

Ok but what changed

We’ve reached a point in time where we know more about what spinosaurus looked like in comparison to carcharodontosaurus.

[sudden wind]

^

[ionic linden]

idk

[fossil ingot]

Lowkey looks cool

[opaque kayak]

Spino perception be like:
Stays same for 6 years:
“Changes every year”

[fossil ingot]

Yeah basically

[misty scarab]

dang

[opaque kayak]

I like the tail recon

Spiny ahh tail

[light osprey]

The pp dreaded nought probably uses Hartman’s skeletal

[fossil ingot]

Same

[queen oar]

Which Carcharodontosaurus?

Tameryraptor? C. saharicus? C. iguidensis? or the other " C. iguidensis " ?

[outer tusk]

carcharodontosaurus

[runic heart]

All the post cranial revoked

[queen oar]

But which?

[outer tusk]

saharicus

[queen oar]

which one? The current one, or Tameryraptor?

[outer tusk]

I mean the only one that's assigned to the species, the neotype

[queen oar]

Ah, so that Carcharodontosaurus.

[balmy oyster]

Yes

[queen oar]

@balmy oyster btw, I assume you've made no progress on those Purussaurus vertebrae, yeah?

[balmy oyster]

It took me a year to make a small iguanodont

[queen oar]

Can you show?

[balmy oyster]

Ye

[queen oar]

damn

[balmy oyster]

I plan on making the others from the same locality

[queen oar]

Why Gendo tho? lol

[balmy oyster]

I started using him early on as a joke but grew comfortable copy pasting him everywhere so he stuck

[tough parcel]

This is how art styles evolve btw

[mental cloak]

Any paleo news?

[queen oar]

Water exists.

[undone rapids]

Existed*, now all we have are fossil imprints of it

[queen oar]

Would you have " Fried Water " for dinner?

[waxen jewel]

(Relatively) recently discovered new Triassic dino called ptychotherates

[mental cloak]

Ah yeah i heard of this lil guy

[halcyon cobalt]

why did that squid/octopus get so big?

[stiff osprey]

amm onit e

[charred hearth]

any down-sizes of the octopus yet?

[halcyon cobalt]

watch it get upsized but found to be a snail or something

[charred hearth]

https://tenor.com/view/snail-traffic-crawl-disturbing-gif-3558402

[balmy oyster]

yues

[charred hearth]

if you able to, could you do a size comparison of it and Parapuzosia?

[grizzled depot]

Big words

[cedar tangle]

Meg more komodo than varan right?

[stiff osprey]

Komodos are a species of varan

But yeah probably like a komodo, perhaps longer tailed

[paper parcel]

Why did giganotosaurus have a bigger brain then other carcharodontids or giganotosaurids

[waxen jewel]

To try and figure out how to dethrone rex as the largest land predator to ever live

[paper parcel]

I imagine it has to do something with sauropod hunting and possibly it being a packhunter, maybe even with complex social structures like modern birds

As in their intelligence along with already being built for hunting sauropods would help

[queen oar]

V. salvadorii

[cedar tangle]

Hmm wha

[stiff osprey]

I don't think giganotosaurus has a proportionally bigger brain

[waxen jewel]

I think the answer depends on which areas of the brain were more developed

Like it could’ve had a larger brain to account for more powerful olfactory senses, or more acute vision, etc.

[frigid bloom]

V. Salvadorii is the Crocodile monitor,
Mega's closest living relative would have been Komodo dragon. Both Mega and Komodo are from Australia

[paper parcel]

I mean, sauropods aren't really something you can hunt with just brute force and yeah, they lived with alot of big ones and probably even argentinosaurus itself, it would be a beneficial trait to be smarter then the things you are hunting who can kill you on accident.

[queen oar]

No, it does. Compared to other Carcharodontosaurs ( at least, who have their braincase preserved ) it's decently big

[queen oar]

Would you have any commentary on the conclusions from Brennan et al. 2020? Out of curiosity, mostly

[timid delta]

Aren't we still speculating about this guy's size?

[exotic flare]

Okay gimme the shrinkwrapped one now

[paper parcel]

It all makes sense, pack hunting gigas using coordination to take down arg or around that size sauropods

[stiff osprey]

Trying to infer cephalopod size from a beak is inherently a bad idea, but it's more likely that it was closer to the size of giant and colossal squid rather than the ship sized abomination news outlets are going to go with

[stiff osprey]

Argentinosaurus is an ungodly large animal, even in groups carcharodontosaurs are probably not tackling a healthy adult

But there are plenty of juveniles or medium-large titanosaurs they can hunt

[timid delta]

Thats a lot of gigas

[paper parcel]

Modern animals today are capable of taking down larger animals in groups, so I imagine giganotosaurus or other carches would do something similar

[charred hearth]

whats the most up to date mosasaurus skeletal?

[frigid bloom]

It's not impossible, but It's far, far more likely that it was closer to Komodo. and though it's mostly fragments, we have enough evidence to support that at the very least, it's anatomy would have been much closer to Komodo than Croc monitor

[queen oar]

You do know that Phylogenomics is implying that they are using genomes to determine the relationships of those animals, right?

Now, to be fair, they do state that in their tree model, that finding samples from extinct species are a lot more difficult... But, also I don't think they put those results for no reason.

[paper parcel]

Do not underestimate the power of family/jk

[exotic flare]

A giga driving a dodge Challenger

[robust crane]

do “fish” exist? because technically, a trex is a fish, we’re a fish and a mouse is a fish because they all belong in sarcopterygii, and Osteichthyes. or is a fish every vertebrate?

[waxen jewel]

Oh god not this again /lh

[woeful falcon]

You've named a bunch of non-traditional fish that are fish. I reckon you could take the next step of logic and acknowledge traditional fish that are also fish

[exotic flare]

-be me swimming to work
-get cut off by SCHOOL bus. School of fish
-stop by local reef to get morning coffee (fresh seawater in gills)
-finally get to work (niche in reef ecosystem)
-get killed and consumed by larger fish (get fired)

[halcyon cobalt]

this would be funnier if you used > instead because of uhh Le 4chan or something

[paper parcel]

larger fish is actually wife who takes your money in the divorce

[exotic flare]

I have an old viet alcohol commercial about this saved

[exotic flare]

Thanks doofus. I'll try to be more like the bright minds on 4chin.

[stiff osprey]

To a taxonomist, yes, everything from a lamprey to tilapia to yourself is a fish. But "fish" as a word for aquatic non-tetrapod vertebrate is still useful in many categories so it probably won't go away anytime soon

[queen oar]

Or let me summarize it: If V. salvadorii and V. priscus, were placed in the same branch. It's because the authors found that their respective genomes shared traits in common. So, not " Far more likely closer to Komodos ", but then again, if there's recent data that contradicts these results and show something else, I'll apologize, accordingly, for my foolish mistake.

[stiff osprey]

There is also the (much funnier and more based) camp of "fish includes only actinopterygii" which means that humans are not fish, but neither are coelacanths or lungfish... or sharks

[woeful falcon]

Parafish

[queen oar]

Parasaurolophus.

[paper parcel]

I used to think birds weren't reptiles because they had feathers not scales and feathers are more like fur then scales. plus they can live in the cold

[balmy oyster]

yes, but a lot of people have agreed upon a ~6 - 10 meter octopod, and anything out of these constraints is likely not the greatest

[woeful falcon]

How can birds be reptiles if reptilia doesn't exist

[stiff osprey]

Which makes sense because that's how everyone is taught in school. But once you look at extinct reptiles and find feathers and warm blood and every other bird trait it just falls apart

[balmy oyster]

birds are fish.

[woeful falcon]

Damn I just got owned

[mental cloak]

I mean..still big af

[balmy oyster]

it's the largest cephalopod by a mile still, maybe only contested with that one big parapoluzia ammonite thing

[queen oar]

@balmy oyster Would you be, Parasaurolophus or Magnapaulia?

[paper parcel]

Maybe the true reptiles were the permian synapsids we found along the way

[balmy oyster]

good question

I do not think I would be very good socially, which para likely was cus it was all about sound and communication. idk how good magna would be either but it doesn't breathe through a trumpet so maybe magna

[stiff osprey]

1900s people calling dimetrodon and co "mammal-like reptiles" has done irreparable damage to the popular idea of mammal evolution

[queen oar]

Shantungosaurus or Edmontosaurus?

[paper parcel]

more like, reptile like mammals if you ask me

[mental cloak]

I think we are all reptiles with weird accesories

[balmy oyster]

shantungo

[queen oar]

It has the chin.

[paper parcel]

Anything looks like a mammal or reptile if it has enough furs or lack there of

[stiff osprey]

We're all fish with weird accessories, reptiles are just our sister branch of fish

[balmy oyster]

chinny chin chin

[halcyon cobalt]

we are all

[timid delta]

It seems to me that in most schools today, kids are taught that birds are dinosaurs?

[mental cloak]

Kinda

[charred hearth]

whats the most up to date mosasaurus skeletal?

[halcyon cobalt]

this is a subtle nod to the fact that random is 50 years old and is out of touch

[paper parcel]

Neon genesis evangelion be like.

[balmy oyster]

beta chud edmusthosaur VS sigma prime shantungosaur

[mental cloak]

Shant un goes saurus

[balmy oyster]

ed month oh sore us

[paper parcel]

The God brachiosaurus.

[stiff osprey]

Well i've not been in a science class (that i wasn't teaching) in a long time but most schools still use the "five classes" of vertebrate, fish amphibian reptile bird and mammal

Which honestly isn't a bad thing, you're not going to get the average 12 year old to understand cladistics

[halcyon cobalt]

I learnt cladistics in 10th grade

[queen oar]

See, this is just a reference to how Humans were made by Angels, and then later the Angels wanted to eliminate Humans ( I think? I don't remember sh#t )

[balmy oyster]

shinji get into the computer lab and make a paleo accurate istiorachis skeletal

[paper parcel]

The angels were beings of power not knowledge, while humans were beings of knowledge not power, kinda like dinosaurs and most modern mammals.

[halcyon cobalt]

very much simplified though, just stuff like clades and what defines a species

[balmy oyster]

the angels were beings sent to try recovering adam, the dinosaurs ate each other and leaf and were happy

[charred hearth]

cart ride into 17 pregnant hyaenodons - Song by BLOXPHEMY

[queen oar]

tbh, considering Anno's love for old tokusatsu, and Kaiju designs from the genre, he probably likes Dinosaurs in some way.

[paper parcel]

Makes perfect sense.

[balmy oyster]

it's hard not to like dinosaurs to a degree, regardless of the medium or interpretation

[charred hearth]

whats a prehestoric animal you dislike and WHY

[paper parcel]

Dinosaurs were simply too pure for this world, they didn't care about the complicated or governmental things, only the natural world around them and pure survival.

[queen oar]

We know my answers.

[charred hearth]

i dont, share them

[paper parcel]

H0mo Er3ctus

[queen oar]

" Some man just want the circus on fire "

[halcyon cobalt]

yor. mo m 😂 😂 😂

[stiff osprey]

I used to dislike megalodon because it was just people constantly trying to make bigger and bigger versions of a great white shark, and anyone who suggested otherwise was seen as a crank. But elongated megalodon hypothesis has given it some freshness back

[balmy oyster]

prehistoric lion/tiger relatives. The animals are fine themselves, but the taxonomy....

somehow we can have 10 species of them based on fractional skull differences, meanwhile most of dinosauria keeps getting lumped into one another because "InDiViDuAl VaRiAtIoN"? they have it too good. all mammals do.

I'm envious.

[charred hearth]

https://tenor.com/view/derpy-hooves-fall-hit-ground-mlp-gif-12035868112459186849

[balmy oyster]

don't people complain about elongated megalodon even though that'd make perfect sense for a giant fish in shallow water

[paper parcel]

Remember the synapsid groups we lost during the permian extinction.

[charred hearth]

thank god

[stiff osprey]

a long time favorite quote is "megalodon was proportionally longer than a great white but also proportionally fatter than a great white"

[balmy oyster]

we lost them so we could do AvA battles with rex and dreadnoughtus

[stiff osprey]

It is more elongated and less elongated at the same time. The physically impossible shark

[paper parcel]

Nah hear me out, double the mammals, earless monkeys, and way more diverse creatures

[charred hearth]

is it true Arctotherium was mainly herbivorous and the most common prey item for cave lions and hyena's?

[stiff osprey]

it would be difficult for a cave hyena to prey on arctotherium since cave hyenas are european and arctotherium is american

[charred hearth]

ah, i thought they lived in america too

[balmy oyster]

no, even if more herbivorous it was still a bear. and there's better to hunt

[paper parcel]

Imagine if humans evolved from suminia instead of primates

[stiff osprey]

Cave bears are european though, and while not the most common they were indeed food for cave lions/hyenas

[queen oar]

I cannot put every reason, so you'll have to ask later...

Tyrannosaurus rex
Otodus megalodon
Triceratops spp.
Deinonychus
Saurophaganax ( I'm gonna have mercy on Torvosaurus today )
Allosaurus ( Not gonna have mercy on this guy )
And yeah, I cannot recall more. I'll recall more in the future... Maybe Neovenator? But mostly because I feel like Neovenator just became a animal for Sh#tpost skeletals, or just " Skeletal Artists when they feel bored "

[charred hearth]

maybe i was thinking of cave bears instead of Arctotherium , i probably was

[halcyon cobalt]

That just wouldn’t be humans then

[balmy oyster]

• fair
• fair
• we need more.
• what why
• true
• THEYRE ALL LUMPED

[paper parcel]

"Human like Reptiles"

[queen oar]

Oh yeah, I don't like Spinosaurus either. IBRAHIM!! RELEASE ACTUAL PHOTOS OF THE MATERIAL, YOU COWARD!!!

[halcyon cobalt]

and I don’t think suminia was comparable to early primates in any way other than the fact it was arboreal

[charred hearth]

who would y'all say is more famous, utahraptor or deinonychus?

[balmy oyster]

it's getting another description sometime in the future so I hope we get good figures and measurements of all the neotype material

[paper parcel]

What if suminia simply evolved into scalies irl? or grey aliens

[queen oar]

if the author is Ibrahim or Sereno, you can loose all of that hope already, man.

[halcyon cobalt]

Into what

[paper parcel]

Lizard people, or those grey alien depictions

[balmy oyster]

well the mirabilis paper had its material scanned and uploaded to morphosource so ig there's SOME hope?

insert copium syringe

[queen oar]

Deinonychus.

[charred hearth]

i would say the top 3 most famous dromeosaurids are

velociraptor
deinonychus
utahraptor

In that order

[queen oar]

inserts photography of Theverycutefishy consuming gas-tanks labelled as " Copium "

[paper parcel]

If only the permian extinction never happened, then we could have no hair or lice, also scales

[charred hearth]

what is you talking about

[balmy oyster]

sorry twin but its hairy

[paper parcel]

You forced me to post this, Domain expansion, Nix illustration

[balmy oyster]

future painting idea

[charred hearth]

has pachyrhinosaurus surpassed styracosaurus in popularity?

[balmy oyster]

arguably yes, it's been mentioned around a lot more and has been in more media than Styracosaurus has been

[charred hearth]

i wonder why pachyrhino has gotten so much attention recently, like, i can think of 3 notable docs that have had it in the past 5 years

[stiff osprey]

WWD3D, WWD25, camp cretaceous, everyone has pachyrhino these days

I haven't seen a Styracosaurus in film since Dinosaur lol

[sullen cairn]

fortunately the pachyrhinosaur will soon be ruined forever

[charred hearth]

WHAT

[balmy oyster]

say what you want. proto Torosaurus is AWESOME.

[paper parcel]

I love Wooly ceratopsians. they go hard.

[queen oar]

See, I don't like Triceratops, because as I stated before: F#ck Othniel Charles Marsh. Bast#rd left us in the most unsolveable situation for Triceratopsinis from the Lance Formation ( Except those described by Cope, unironically )

See, Shirtz said that " Velociraptor " is the most famous. But unironically, most of the fame, at least outside of spaces from the paleo-community, to "Velociraptor ", it's just Deinonychus pretending to be Velociraptor. So, Velociraptor, the actual and only Velociraptor it's not even famous, and Deinonychus gets all the credits at the end. And similar to T. rex I don't like the culture around it

And yeah, Allosaurus still has a place in my heart, but Saurophaganax can go to synonym-hell!

[stiff osprey]

pachyrhinosaurus is like torosaurus if it wasn't like torosaurus in any way and also was a centrosaurine

[sullen cairn]

i like triceratops but i will readily concede the only interesting things about triceratops are that its very derived in the most boring possible fashions

[queen oar]

Legit, I wouldn't even allow Allosaurus anax to have been erected as a species name. Just lump that guy into A. fragilis or A. jimmadseni.

[charred hearth]

would you guys say edmontosaurus, trike and anky are only famous due to living with rex?

[stiff osprey]

triceratops is the only ceratopsid to fully close its frill i feel like that should give it points even if you ignore that it is ginormungous

[balmy oyster]

• oh that is true, it's sad how much in a pit ornithopod taxonomy and research has been placed in and we're still fixing up mistakes and ignored research to this day
• I said the same, it was just named "velociraptor" because that was well known more at the time since iirc deinonychus was a fairly new species (hence why "velociraptor" was being uncovered in NA at the start of the movie)
• thankfully I am 89% sure it's going to end up as a apatosaur of some kind, but I would kindly accept it being a carcharodontosaurid too since that would be somewhat cool

[mental cloak]

Obviously

[charred hearth]

be honest, would anyone care about edmontosaurus if it didnt live with tyrannosaurus?

[stiff osprey]

not until they discovered the musth glands

[paper parcel]

I agree

[balmy oyster]

honestly the worst thing to do in this case. Allosaurus is a pretty big species complex, and while I would've agreed over a year ago I've opened my eyes to see that at least fragilis is REALLY overlumped and needs some working.

[mental cloak]

Yes becuz i think edmontosaurus is cool

[sullen cairn]

its really fortunate x-rex of all things ended up not being a rex because i feel like x is the only letter preceeding -rex i could concievably imagine not being a t rex

[queen oar]

Assuming that no other Chasmosaurinae and/or Triceratopsini would've done that already

[stiff osprey]

i like edmont but it was completely mogged by parasaurolophus and co. after their discovery and only became popular again when saurian told people it was 15m long

[charred hearth]

is x-rex edmontosaurus? because i heard it was another saurolophine

[balmy oyster]

doesn't seem like it, every chasmosaur we have has had some sort of big, holed frill with triceratopsins being the weird ones out of the bunch

[queen oar]

See, that is not going to happen. Because, if A. fragilis gets that treatment, other Theropod species will have to get that treatment equally... And we know who they never going to touch, don't we?

[sullen cairn]

fortunately for triceratops and unfenestration being unique, nobody cares about tatankaceratops, including chasmosaur workers

[charred hearth]

does anyone have that image of the hell creek size chart that also include lance and another formation?

[balmy oyster]

well I mean Tarbosaurus is sorta getting this treatment, and no planetary system has exploded nearby yet so I think it's safe to do

[stiff osprey]

NOOO TATANK

[mental cloak]

I mean
They used their face alot to defend themselves other than just for display
And triceratops used his frill as a shild

[stiff osprey]

but wait does tatankaceratops actually have a complete enough frill to say it was defenestrated

[sullen cairn]

and even then tatankaceratops is just like ott and larson think the unfigured countless parietal fragments probably didnt have fenestra which seems about on par with avaceratops in regards to how compelling it seems

[balmy oyster]

you'd think but then why would the frill start shrinking, leaving the neck and back more...oh wait Tyrannosaurs were just biting onto it and messing with ceratopsians. hah.

[queen oar]

Nobody cares about Tarbo, really. Tarbo is like Torosaurus, the only love it gets is in online-spaces. In the real world, paleontologists probably frown and go " I wish it was a Tyrannosaurus or Triceratops "

[mental cloak]

Idk man ask the ceratopsians

[paper parcel]

Hot take but shrinkwrapping is overrated, we need to be fluffing our dinos.

[charred hearth]

what do you think tatankaceratops is?

1 - its own species

2 - trike with dwarfism

3 - industry plant

[sullen cairn]

tatankas the most bhi coded taxon ever thats like the least industry plant thing possible
unless the industry in question is the bhi

[balmy oyster]

this maddens be but sadly you're right. if they truly cared then we'd have at least two Torosaurus species by now.

[mental cloak]

Overrated?
I hate skrinkwrapping
Amke the dinos ugly

[stiff osprey]

perhaps the worst possible group you could have chosen to make this argument

[paper parcel]

Its cute

[charred hearth]

no its not

[balmy oyster]

ermm, 2016 called? it wants its feathers back.

[queen oar]

@balmy oyster believe me when I say this, the only reason Tarbo hasn't been sent to synonym-hell, it's because realistically it doesn't have much traits that overlap with Tyrannosaurus, besides maybe some overlap in specimens in terms of postcranial proportions, but otherwise, if Tarbosaurus was a tiny-bit more similar to T. rex... You can be sure they would destroy both the genus and the species, and just name it " T. rex "

[stiff osprey]

plenty of fluffy dinosaurs out there but hadrosaurids sure as hell aint one of em

[sullen cairn]

ever heard of haolong buddy

[mental cloak]

ITS A JUVINILE

[charred hearth]

who would y'all say is the big 3 of Ornithischian? https://x.com/RickRaptor105/status/2048016013371875378

RickRaptor105 (@RickRaptor105)

If T. rex, Spinosaurus and Giganotosaurus are The Big 3 of theropods/predatory dinosaurs, are these The Big 3 of ornithischians?

I wanted to call them The Big 3 of herbivores first, but it feels wrong to not have a sauropod, and then the question becomes which sauropod it'd be.

X · Apr 25, 2026, 12:27 PM

[paper parcel]

You forced my hand I am afraid

[mental cloak]

No pls

[stiff osprey]

i escape public humiliation by the narrowest of technicalities

[charred hearth]

should anky be replaced in this big 3 for para?

[mental cloak]

Eeeehhh idk

[queen oar]

tbh, the big three ornithischians are all Hadrosaurs, no? Shantungosaurus, NA Maastrichtian Saurolophini and Magnapaulia

[sullen cairn]

i think they mean like popularity

[balmy oyster]

well that would be weird because that'd be like naming shantungosaurus "edmontosaurus"

[mental cloak]

If thats the case
Stego stays
Becuz omg
Everyone knows stegosaurus
Literaly everyone
Its one of yhe most rexognizable dinosaurs out thete

[charred hearth]

i think its more in terms of popularity

when you think of the big 3 of therapods, you think of rex, gigantosaurus and spino

not, rex, zhuchengtyrannus, mcraeensis

[stiff osprey]

Trike and stego are the most popular by far, but most people know "the armored dinosaur with a club tail" even if they can't name anky, so it stays

[balmy oyster]

might all be saurolophines too, since there's also fragmentary giant kritosaur material scattered around in southern NA

[mental cloak]

Yeah

[queen oar]

The musth are strong with these ones

[stiff osprey]

anky is still mogged by brontosaurus popularity wise though

[sullen cairn]

im glad we as a society have evolved from made up parasaurolophus size to the indet half a saurolophine maxilla is a kritosaur
/srs

[mental cloak]

We are smart(most of the time and when we want to)

[queen oar]

Hey table, I sent you a question in DMs

[balmy oyster]

this is because one is fadeno scaled and the other is newgen scaled

[charred hearth]

top 3 herbivores

trike, stego, bronto

top 3 carnivores

rex, giganto, spino

but whos the top 3 for omnivores??

[stiff osprey]

what actually stops the ojo alamo maxilla from just being the ancestor of hellcreekolophus giganteus

[mental cloak]

Galimimus
Uuuuhhhh..idk

[sullen cairn]

besides ojo alamo being the last five seconds of the maas nothing really tmk

[queen oar]

*Montanolophus doogmensis

[charred hearth]

actually wait

gallimimus, deinocherius, troodon who is laten who is now steno

[balmy oyster]

pachy, galli, deinoch

this requires some stretching of what we understand these animals could've been as "omnivores" though (deinoch could just be a full on herbivore, in which case replace it with struthi/ornitho ig?)
oh right lol I forgot about troodontidae

[paper parcel]

Its already began, all your favorite dinos shall be fluffed.

[charred hearth]

wait, deinocherius being more herbivorous then pachy? can you expand on that to me?

[balmy oyster]

all of these became outdated before spinosaurus had a paddle tail btw

[mental cloak]

Aren't deinoch like omnivores due to fish content?

[queen oar]

I have my doubts for two of these, tbh.

[sullen cairn]

it also likely used its massive pygostyle to catch fish like a basket

[balmy oyster]

the thing about it eating fish could just be dead fish that washed up beside/over it, or it dying over some sort of fish remains
@mental cloak

[charred hearth]

what exactly makes pachy omnivorous though?

[mental cloak]

Uuuhhhhmmm debatable

[paper parcel]

Spinosaurus 2027

[balmy oyster]

well it wouldn't be the first time a dinosaur was argued for fish gut contents but was found to have died over/around fish instead

[charred hearth]

if spinofaarus was actually a real animal, would it even be able to function and live ?

[mental cloak]

I know but like
If the animal ate the dead fish on the shoreline
It still have atr the fish nontheless

[queen oar]

See, I didn't like feathers back then. But Fuzzy Ceratopsids and Feathered Theropods ( At least, Coelurosaurs and Carnosaurs ) sound pretty reasonable to me.

[balmy oyster]

but we don't know this or have the means to prove it

[halcyon cobalt]

All I see is that there were parasitic fish in Cretaceous Asia which lived in the body cavities of larger dinosaurs

[paper parcel]

HEAR ME OUT

[mental cloak]

Oh god imagine

[queen oar]

Sure.

[balmy oyster]

see he gets it

[halcyon cobalt]

I’ve still got it

[stiff osprey]

those were around in america too as evidenced by the paddlefish found inside an edmontosaur

[charred hearth]

how do we know deinocherius isnt just a Liaoningosaurus situation where it died ontop of a fish or however people thought it was a omnivorous fish eater

[sullen cairn]

why did troodon have a massive peak of terminal lucidity in late 2016 immediately before being actually killed as a taxon in 2017

[mental cloak]

No shut up

[halcyon cobalt]

Does this correlate with any updates of the isle?

[queen oar]

See, it was all the researchers searching for publications of Troodon.

[mental cloak]

Man why this keep happening
Why tf these animals keep dyin on top of fish

[balmy oyster]

because fish were everywhere

matter of fact, you're talking to one right now.

[mental cloak]

Holy fuh

[halcyon cobalt]

some kind of incredibly ugly fish

[stiff osprey]

I think deinocheirus could have eaten the fish, even if accidentally, if it's dredging up water plants at some point it will eat a fish

but for liaoningosaurus it's odd

[sullen cairn]

also yeah ankylosaurus beats everything else with hammers

[balmy oyster]

it ate the fish and as punishment it got torn in half by a tarbosaurus

[halcyon cobalt]

external ears on dinosaurs is very disgusting

[mental cloak]

Like how god intended

[stiff osprey]

god allowed deinocheirus to eat any tree from the nemegt garden, except for the tree of fish

[charred hearth]

i keep thinking your pfp is a Deeeep.io clownfish

[halcyon cobalt]

the forbidden fish

[mental cloak]

Yes.alot.

[sullen cairn]

what

[paper parcel]

Nah its based

[stiff osprey]

i once saw one of those named baryonyx

was a pretty cool knife too

[charred hearth]

proof that weapons named after dinosaurs are awesome?

[mental cloak]

Hah,u thought i was unarmed..but i still have my pocket combat troodon!!

[stiff osprey]

baryonyx machete

[balmy oyster]

https://giphy.com/gifs/meme-jujutsu-kaisen-jjk-8ezz6fUfcWYlDFtKxK

[mental cloak]

Name a gun lioningosaurus

[halcyon cobalt]

who has that message about deinosuchus fighting with T.rex over a deinocheirus carcasses

[balmy oyster]

eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark! eat fish, become the shark!

[mental cloak]

Omg so many wrong things in this

[charred hearth]

😟

[halcyon cobalt]

so many things right*

[stiff osprey]

deinosuchus fighting tyrannosaurus over a tylosaurus carcass is more likely than you think

[charred hearth]

blink twice if you are in need of assistance

[balmy oyster]

https://giphy.com/gifs/zootopia-blankstare-nickstare-G3l2RIGtIgmIrZMSSU

[mental cloak]

Deinocheirus fights over a giant fukin fish

[halcyon cobalt]

deinocheirus fighting a giant fish attempting to lay eggs inside it

[paper parcel]

Behold, the Permian

[mental cloak]

The parasitic fish returns

[charred hearth]

is shaman ragebait?

[mental cloak]

Ok i kinda like the first two ones

Anyway byebye guys imma go to sleep
See u guys soon

[balmy oyster]

sleep well

[charred hearth]

i wonder, how long would tyrannosaurus sleep per day?

[stiff osprey]

more than an elephant, less than a lion

[halcyon cobalt]

more than a fruit fly, less than a hibernating bear

[queen oar]

@balmy oyster is True? That you are a Xiphactinus?

[balmy oyster]

sadly no...but I knew a guy who knew a guy who was

[queen oar]

@balmy oyster are you a Bungartius?

[frail jolt]

i have a question because theres a lot of mixed opinions, how do u guys think parasaurolophus moved, like did it run on 2 legs walk on 4, only 2 legs, babys are only 2 legs etc etc. how do u guys think it moved

[stiff osprey]

Undoubtedly it spent most of its time on four legs, as a baby and adult. But there is still no agreement if it ran on 2 or 4 legs

[coral forge]

Hadrosaurs as a whole are generally thought to walk on 4, run on 2

[frail jolt]

so for my game, its run anim should be on 2 legs?

[stiff osprey]

On two legs would be the fastest way for it to move so if you want maximum speed then yeah

4 legs would give better stability and better turning

[frail jolt]

what if it sometimes went on all fours to run, and other times on 2 legs, but quadroped when walking, standing, stuff like that

[stiff osprey]

most animals don't typically run at their max speed unless they're being chased, so I'd guess hadrosaurs only ran bipedally to get away from predators

[frail jolt]

k, ty

[exotic flare]

They're both wildly popular. And crazily though I think it's because of fossil fighters

If I remember correctly you could run them both with velociraptor and they all buffed each other in the game

[frail jolt]

utahraptor cus its the biggest of its subgroup and thats a big accomplishment and is known for it, deinonychus is smaller, in less pop culture, and doesnt have anything crazy going for it

[exotic flare]

Critterslop

[exotic flare]

That looks full Tang. So valid

[coral forge]

deinonychus was in all 3 jurassic park movies, the first 3 jurassic world movies and every jurassic park/world spinoff. It has probably the 2nd highest pop culture representation of any dinosaur

[frail jolt]

when was it in the jp movies

[coral forge]

The JP Velociraptor is Deinonychus

[frail jolt]

then y is it called velociraptor, also everyone reffers it as velociraptor AND its way closer in size to utahraptor

[coral forge]

Deinonychus was considered a species of Velociraptor at the time, and Chrichton found the name cooler.
Just because people don't know it as Deinonychus doesn't mean it isn't Deinonychus, and therefore doesn't mean Deinonychus isn't famous.

[frail jolt]

oh mb

[stable sun]

It's still called Velociraptor mongoliensis. Yes, it's size is based on Deinonychus. But it's still Velociraptor.

[warm saddle]

Is that a Billhook?

[mental cloak]

Yes

[azure matrix]

I was hacked because of my cousin doing stuff he’s not supposed to be doing

[frail robin]

Reset your password. It will disconnect all of the devices that are signed into your account

[azure matrix]

Trying to

[charred hearth]

has anyone done a mosa size comparison using the skeletal yet?

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/HodariNundu/status/2048221969145880758/photo/1 please the slander on mosa must stop

Hodari Shadowalker ❄️🐆 (@HodariNundu)

A desperate mosasaur beaches itself after being chased all night by a Cretaceous kraken Nanaimoteuthis that squirted bioluminiscent ink-mucus on it to turn it into a glowing target. Who's patience will outlast who's? :B

X · Apr 26, 2026, 2:05 AM

[mental cloak]

I like tjis thing got shrinked in less than a month

[true juniper]

Could a Giant octopus beach itself on land too?

[tacit pine]

Deserved

[tough parcel]

@balmy oyster Why is this a WEBP file? Can you fix it to an actually real file type

[queen oar]

you can just copy it on any software and save it as a png, or just open a tab in that software, copy it and paste into a different tab.

[tough parcel]

I know but that's a lot of effort

[queen oar]

And I thought I was lazy, holy.

[stable sun]

????

[charred hearth]

please falcon, do a size comparison between it and mosa 🥺

[queen oar]

@tough parcel actually, this should be a PNG already

[tough parcel]

No because it's the wrong image format (I have two references and I'm asking for verification)

[charred hearth]

😟

[river plinth]

What's stego doing there😭

[charred hearth]

its the top 3 most popular Ornithischian

[river plinth]

Oh

[queen oar]

@tough parcel what do you think about Tapejarinae sexual dimorphism?

[tough parcel]

I don't see it as impossible but I'm not aware of the evidence for it

[charred hearth]

do you guys think mosa got this?

[ionic linden]

no

[charred hearth]

why is that

[ionic linden]

idk

[queen oar]

I am.

[balmy oyster]

Wait is it not a png

Did I post the wrong version 💔

[tough parcel]

It's a webp there 💔

[balmy oyster]

Ah oops

I’ll post a png version in a minute

[stable sun]

don't do that, bully this person instead

[queen oar]

@balmy oyster suplex Falcon.

[balmy oyster]

Okay!

[charred hearth]

notice how we never heard from either again?

[ionic linden]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-scared-gif-27466237

[spice latch]

How about next to livyatan?

[charred hearth]

livy is smaller then a actual sperm whale

[vestal frigate]

Animals are so cool

[grim parcel]

my friends call me that name too

[charred hearth]

uhm

[paper parcel]

Sauropods and elephants are based af

[warm saddle]

Ok question what range would you consider a non avian theropod to be "Medium sized"

Like in you opinion what is the cut off from small to medium to large theropod

[paper parcel]

Torvosaurus to allosaurus

[warm saddle]

So range? Like in metric tonnes preferebly

[warm saddle]

Weight range?

[balmy oyster]

oh whoops right @tough parcel sorry for the wait

[paper parcel]

Infinite deep fried calamari

[fossil ingot]

True

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/euyartoa21/status/2048493588216938564

Kelenkenfan32 (@euyartoa21)

Then here are the proboscideans. The coolest mammalian lineages in synapsid clade

X · Apr 26, 2026, 8:05 PM

[queen oar]

alongside the suplex lol

[charred hearth]

can anyone compare this to mosa now?

[charred hearth]

thoughts on fishy turning guliacho into a fossil?

[frigid delta]

Mosasaurus credit to Hank Sharpe

[charred hearth]

thank you

[frigid delta]

MOSA'S BACK AS THE KING OF CRETACEOUS SEA
Nanaimoteuthis more like CALAMARI FOR SQUAMATE

[balmy oyster]

i think it was a very good idea

[charred hearth]

do you have any regrets or do you stand stalward with your actions?

[coral forge]

mosasaurus more like average pliosaur snack

[granite thicket]

Raptorial ichthyosaurs are laughing

[mental cloak]

Big squid

[queen oar]

Discombobulate.

[inland orbit]

Quick question for people who probably know more than me about classification...

About everyone's favorite dubious troodontids...

So, from my understanding, most of the specimens classified as Troodon formosus have been reclassified as either Latenivenatrix or Stenonychosaurus specimens, among others...

And more recent examination finds Latenivenatrix mcmastrae to be a synonym of Stenonychosaurus inequalis, making steno the preferred name.

To my knowledge, Troodon formosus curently only has 1 tooth for specimens, and I have seen some argument that it is possible the it could also be a member of Stenonychosaurus.

Stenonychosaurus inequalis was named in 1932, while Troodon formosus goes back to 1855.

If Troodon formosus is some day determined to be a synonym of Stenonychosaurus inequalis, which name takes precedent?

It would be Troodon formosus again, right?

---

TL;DR - If Troodon formosus, Stenonychosaurus inequalis, and Latenivenatrix mcmasterae are all found to be the same species, which name takes precedent?

My assumption is Troodon formosus again because of chronologic timing of the names.

[waxen jewel]

Yes, older name almost always takes precedence but there are sometimes exceptions

[inland orbit]

first named dinosaur being a funny notable exception

[queen oar]

It's technically the oldest name, but it also has more citations than Laten and Steno, if I had to guess.

[sullen cairn]

hypothetically yes but the problem is both troodon and more recently stenonychosaurus have been considered nomen dubiums (with the latter case leading to latenivenatrix being the only functional name of the three)

[inland orbit]

I had heard Steno was the current preferred name of the dinosaur park troodontid

[sullen cairn]

that was because cullen et al 2021 didn't find the differences between latenivenatrix and stenonychosaurus compelling

but varricchio et al 2025 (troodon neotype proposal) consider stenonychosaurus a nomen dubium in which case it cant take seniority over latenivenatrix

[inland orbit]

man f- this trio's naming

[frigid delta]

so... only Latenivenatrix and there are no Stenonychosaurus & Troodon?

[inland orbit]

back to the main question, IF all 3 are found to be the same animal, that WOULD make the name Troodon take precedent, correct?

[sullen cairn]

the more baffling part is said troodon neotype proposal provides a diagnosis that very clearly has to exclude latenivenatrix as a distinct taxon, and then argues stenonychosaurus (which the authors consider to be indistinguishable from both talos and the proposed neotype) is the same taxon as the proposed neotype because montana is close to alberta

and then they use this synonymy of stenonychosaurus with the proposed neotype to argue that because cullen et al 2021 argued latenivenatrix and stenonychosaurus are the same, latenivenatrix might be the same as the neotype, which would mean their neotype diagnosis is entirely incoherent and not actually applicable to anything

[waxen jewel]

Yes, unless there’s an argument for one of the others to take precedence but that’s not common at all

[sullen cairn]

the neotype proposal is like unironically the worst thing ever it somehow gets worse every time one tries to read it

[queen oar]

Tbf NA Troodontids seem to throw coherence out of the window

[inland orbit]

so more specifically, the more complete stenonychosaurus skeletons would belong to troodon formosus if both are the same animal, which i think that new paper suggests?

[queen oar]

Maybe one could argue that Laten would be a preferrable name, from what I'm understanding from the convo, it would have a better diagnosis and defined characters, which in the process would make it more informal than Troodon and Stenonychosaurus?

[sullen cairn]

if one could establish all three are the same species it would be called troodon formosus but i dont think any literature has coherently argued that to be the case

[waxen jewel]

I do think that sort of thing has happened before so it could be possible

[inland orbit]

I don't think any literature has coherently argued at all in regards to the 3...

[sullen cairn]

the neotype proposal justifying all of its systemic and nomenclatural decisions on the assertion of a single troodontid in campanian montana/alberta is made even more incomprehensible by the fact they actively concur that the only dinosaur park troodontid pubis is distinct from the proposed neotype pubis from montana

[queen oar]

Solution: Make all of them " Troodon subjective to change "

[sullen cairn]

there's also xenovenator's description with the secret evil choice of concluding latenivenatrix, stenonychosaurus, and the proposed troodon neotype are three distinct taxa which is incredibly amusing because that means the overwhelming majority of references to "troodon" in literature belong to multiple taxa entirely distinct from the proposed neotype

[sullen cairn]

granted this is already the case even with the proposed neotype diagnosis in a vacuum

[inland orbit]

man I just wanna know what name to slap onto some troodontid paleoart I have been working on based on a "stenonychosaurus" skeletal reconstruction...

[queen oar]

" Troodontid " ?

[sullen cairn]

unironically might just be best to go with indet troodontid after the instance of domestic terrorism that was the neotype proposal

or maybe indet troodontini because thats a clade now for some reason

[sullen cairn]

the neotype diagnosis is also just really lazy and really bad for a bunch of other reasons but thats another story

[inland orbit]

F it, I am just going to leave it labeled Troodon and go with the "it's speculative based on fossil relatives." If they all get merged, at least it won't be incorrect, and if not, there's spec evo i guess

[queen oar]

What do y'all think of Megalosaurus?

[inland orbit]

You mean S. humanum?

[queen oar]

Maybe including it.

[inland orbit]

including it in what

[queen oar]

Megalosaurus

[sullen cairn]

also more broadly but its also somewhat incomprehensible how the neotype proposal makes a big fuss that the name troodon is functionally anchored to the dinosaur park material and then proposes a neotype from two medicine

[inland orbit]

somethign something potential author bias?

[sullen cairn]

i think the authors just really really want to call something troodon and dont really care if troodon has any historical coherence or continuity with what troodon was in literature

[queen oar]

Sounds like Paleontology.

[balmy oyster]

How plausible is it to produce another neotype to replace the current proposed one if it is within the same confinements/area of the formation or holotype specimen

Or would it just be a paratype

[waxen jewel]

I think he’s pretty neat

Allosaurus will always have my heart but he’s up there too

[inland orbit]

on a less headache inducing note...

Is there any evidence for Protoceratops andrewsi having quills, or any specific patterning or integument?

or close relatives that would suggest it even?

[queen oar]

What if Megalosaurus had a funny snout crest?

[waxen jewel]

I would laugh and tell him he’s wonderful and doing a great job

[sullen cairn]

this is perhaps unsurprising given before proposing the neotype the authors had previously been using troodon formosus, which they acknowledged wasnt diagnostic, for stenonychosaurus inequalis because they made up a nomenclatural provision that because the genus stenonychosaurus hadnt been used in 30 years, troodon formosus has to absorb the species with no formal action taken (which is not an actual nomenclatural provision like at all)

which also just kinda feels like borderline lying when canadian authors has been using troodon inequalis distinct from troodon formosus since the mid 2000s

[queen oar]

No evidence. Just possible, I guess.

Was there any reason why Folkes reconstructed Megalosaurus like a Bri'ish Torvosaurus? Or he was like " Bored " that day?

[inland orbit]

I guess that is also a point in just calling the paleoart Troodon, Steno also being called T. inequalis

[waxen jewel]

It would be an inference based on the fact that some other ceratopsians had them, but afiak no direct evidence

[sullen cairn]

unironically i think making latenivenatrix's holotype the neotype of stenonychosaurus inequalis, and then making inequalis the type species of troodon would be less convoluted than the current neotype proposal

[queen oar]

You can tell Table is really dedicated to the topic of the big three troodons.

[sullen cairn]

congratulations to the MOR for somehow being even more inconsistent with troodontid nomenclature/systematics then chasmosaur workers being consistent with heterochrony (also deriving from the MOR)

[waxen jewel]

I’ve considered trying to get more into paleontology by reading the actual papers instead of just Wikipedia

Thank you for validating my decision not to lmaoo

[balmy oyster]

Isn’t that sort of what megalosaurus is

[inland orbit]

and then someone decides s inequalis should absorb t formosus and suddenly we are back to all 3 being t formosus again... yay...

[queen oar]

Nah. I mean, I wouldn't say so. Hence the curiosity

[sullen cairn]

well if we make inequalis the type species of troodon we'd be able to just ignore formosus forever

[inland orbit]

Would it be called troodon or stenonychosaurus in that case

[sullen cairn]

hypothetically it'd be troodon inequalis by default

[sullen cairn]

what did they mean by this

[inland orbit]

Round and round we go in the troodontid naming circle where nobody really knows....

[sullen cairn]

but remember, triceratops is also actually super paedomorphic! this is why its epiossifications undergo mitosis

[waxen jewel]

I know this isn’t how any of this works but at this point let’s just throw troodon away and start over

[inland orbit]

just wait till the ai gen papers start making their way through for why something should be called something...

[queen oar]

Believe that in another work, they kinda go into the idea of Chasmosaurinae evolution, and basically it's an idea that Coahuilaceratops is in that branch that gave rise to Triceratopsinis.

[inland orbit]

I think that just gives us Troodon inequalis as the type species then

[queen oar]

Or is it the same work?

[sullen cairn]

In which case it’s unfortunate they partially justify this with a character they just said is actually a super late ontogenetic feature of pentaceratops

[balmy oyster]

There is a reason why big paleo is so against Titanoceratops’s validation, if it does the mega anagenesis immediately collapses and it would force researchers to acknowledge there can be more than 2 large animals in an ecosystem

Or no wait that would be for twin mountain acro or the two torosauruses

Either way titano being valid would crash and burn all of anagenesis

[inland orbit]

I think this is where I step out. I don't know enough about ceratopsians for this.

Thanks for the ... help? confusion? something? about latenonychoodon's status

[queen oar]

Tbh, Horseshoe Canyon Formation is just there, you have the typical Chasmosaurs and then for some reason: Eotriceratops.

[balmy oyster]

Long story short if you think of how many there are then double that number

There are still more.

[waxen jewel]

Not like that’s an easily observable occurrence in the modern day lmaoo

[sullen cairn]

grand chasmosaur anagenesis paper #1: titanoceratops has a super anterior nasal horn just like triceratopsini because of ontogeny with zero justification)
grand chasmosaur anagenesis paper #2: coahuilaceratops and bravoceratops have an anterior nasal because they're closer to triceratopsini than pentaceratops. titanoceratops is still pentaceratops tho

[queen oar]

Most out of place Ceratopsid ever tbh.

[balmy oyster]

You’d think but for some reason researchers keep using the argument of modern day ecosystems to lump stuff together

[sullen cairn]

also we will continue to code pentaceratops as not having an anteriorly positioned nasal horn and in fact having a not anteriorly positioned nasal horn is actually part of its diagnosis

[balmy oyster]

Like sure the brown bear is analogous to why there is only one species of a certain dinosaur across the entire continent

[queen oar]

You see, the modern ecosystem doesn't work because then they go " See? Less big animals "

When the elephant in the room is just there, you know? A universal species that has been introduced to almost every ecosystem and affected it in some way.

[balmy oyster]

Also not mentioning if you go back like 10000 years ecosystems are 5x more diverse and you even have multiple proboscidean species living alongside one another with no trouble

[inland orbit]

ultimate invasive species

[balmy oyster]

almost like maybe the combination of mass climate shifts and us killing everything that breathes may be two factors as to why modern ecosystems are not a good basis to use in prehistoric ones….

[sullen cairn]

fortunately as toroceratops and nanotyrannus teach us, if an ontogenetic change is entirely unprecedented among any of its relatives, but the change is hypothetically not physiologically incompatible with an organism not exploding at conception, this is compelling evidence of synonymy

[waxen jewel]

“Two big animals can’t live in the same ecosystem! Just ignore all the rhinos elephants hippos and giraffes in the African savannas”

[balmy oyster]

This is the one step you must take in order to take the mantle of mr paleo

[inland orbit]

something something, if everything is big, nothing is...

[queen oar]

There are very old photos, of African Elephant skulls with four tusks, not like Gomphotheres, but like mutated to have two pairs of upper tusks. And although it is very likely a hoax, it is also likely that there also was a lot more genetic diversity, until we wiped most of that genetic diversity.

[balmy oyster]

Also ignore how there’s like, 6 giraffe species meaning that depending on how an animal functions or behaves it may speciate more than others

[balmy oyster]

We could of had lotr irl…what was robbed from us.

[waxen jewel]

It’s crazy to me how much of science in general seems to be ego-motivated

[inland orbit]

Question around another favorite fossil... Dryptosaurus... 3 fingers or 2. I am finding reconstructions and consensus to be very contradictory

[balmy oyster]

Should be two

[inland orbit]

are we sure? 2 is the current consensus for sure?

[balmy oyster]

Yea, from what I’ve seen only two fingers

[queen oar]

Yeah, Tyrannosaurs already reduce their third digit very early, so they may already be mostly reduced in Dryptosaurus.

[inland orbit]

so something like this then?

[balmy oyster]

Yep

[waxen jewel]

Are there any examples of tyrannosaurs with the third digit not yet fully reduced?

[queen oar]

Wouldn't say so, given how it still vestigial and still visible in Tyrannosaurines, Dryptosaurus who is less derived than the comparison, the third digit should probably still be a bit more visible, so like a bit longer.

[inland orbit]

small claw like guanlong maybe?

[queen oar]

Like a long stupid stump on the hand.

Did you all know that Coelurosaurs commonly have very elongated second digits, also consistent in Tyrannosauroides, but Megaraptors don't have that? Crazy, definetly not implying anything there.

[inland orbit]

didn't know that about megaraptors. odd. also dilong has a 3rd digit that kinda looks like it would have been flesh mit fused with the 2nd

[queen oar]

It is very thin.

[inland orbit]

it looks like there is the tiniest of claws on there

[vestal frigate]

Yeah. Me thinks it needs sum food

[runic heart]

Is daspletosaurus wilsoni the one with the longer skull?

[frigid delta]

how accurate is Bajadasaurus234's Spinops?

[native kindle]

not

[coral forge]

way too big and looks too retro

[stable sun]

???? What? Both of these are large.

[stable sun]

Pliosaurs were fossils at that point

[coral forge]

because mosasaurs wouldn't exist if they weren't

[stable sun]

Not that early tbf Yutyrannus still had 3

[stable sun]

Yutyrannus, Megaraptorans, Guanlong, Dilong, Eotyrannus

[prisma hawk]

Megaraptorans being tyrannosaurs is still odd to me. Like the northern hemisphere tyrannosaurs decided they didn’t need arms and the southern hemisphere tyrannosaurs were like cool we’ll take yours too

[coral forge]

Megaraptorans aren't strictly southern hemisphere, there's just a lot of them in Patagonia. There's one in north Africa, one in Japan, and two in Thailand, all of which being some of the earliest in the family.

[queen oar]

Oh no, it has the third digit, i'm just saying that very early on it already starts to reduce significantly, since it starts to shorten.

[zealous ravine]

I'm honestly not so sure. Cause Eotyrannus has a more "normal" third digit. So either the reduction in proceratosaurs was convergent or Eo was being weird.The unfortunate thing is we entirely lack forelimb material for basically all mid-grade tyrannosaurs. Which obscures things a lot.

[queen oar]

Probably Eotyrannus being weird, since even small Proceratosaurids kinda of already started shortening their third digit, but alternatively, one could say that the third digit still had a use for whatever Eotyrannus was doing ( Somehow )

[zealous ravine]

We really just need an arm from a mid-grade tyrannosaur. There are a lot of promising units that could give something but nothing yet

[runic heart]

Is there a good up-to-date lythronax skeletal?

[zealous ravine]

Working on a very interesting fella

(Rhabdodon)

[queen oar]

@zealous ravine What do you think of Megalosaurus?

[zealous ravine]

Pretty cool, not much to say about it

[rare bough]

what even is this

[zealous ravine]

Rhabdodon

[ashen wedge]

A skeleton

[rare bough]

a skelet of what

[ashen wedge]

Of a non-avian dinosaur

[rare bough]

you not found the wings yet how you know

[ashen wedge]

If it has wings, it won’t automatically make it into an avian dinosaur

[rare bough]

avian mean flying not?

[ashen wedge]

It refers to the specific Bird branch of the Dinosaurs

[stable sun]

No

[coral forge]

non avian means any dinosaur that isnt a true bird, or a member of the clade "Aves"
Since true birds are called avians, non birds are non avianz

[rare bough]

who said that

[balmy oyster]

hasn’t everyone

[coral forge]

everyone

[rare bough]

im not ok with this

[coral forge]

why

[balmy oyster]

why

[queen oar]

I thought " Avian Dinosaurs " was heavily subjective, given how many theropods outside of Aves kinda of have traits we commonly associate with Birds, some more than others.

[tough parcel]

Spinosaurus babies from Surviving Earth

[coral forge]

feathered spinosaurus.....?

[queen oar]

makes sense.

[misty scarab]

lookin like ducklings

[coral forge]

Avian just means bird. An avian is another way of saying a bird, and non avian dinosaur is just any dinosaur outside of aves, or any dinosaur that isnt a true bird

[queen oar]

But see, that's the interesting thing: What is a Bird?

[coral forge]

a member of avialae

[queen oar]

so like this guy?

[coral forge]

sure

[runic heart]

Feathered and lipped, but the cgi actually looks awesome.

[true juniper]

Evidence of burrowing in anchisaurus ??????

[rare bough]

Spinosaurus swam like a loon

[zealous ravine]

Tbh neither of those are issues

[wind prairie]

and you say these as if they're problems..?

[runic heart]

I care about higher plausibility, but I understand that “speculative” is more popular.

[queen oar]

tbh, Fibers/Filaments/Feathers are the least concerning thing here.

[zealous ravine]

I mean I’d argue feathers are more likely at least for juveniles, and lips are still a complete unknown

[runic heart]

Spinosaurus’s front teeth were splayed, and covering them would require mammalian-level lips. The feathers imo should be thinner, but they’re alright.

[zealous ravine]

Second part is entirely speculation, no reason for it to be that way. As for the first, that’s entirely dependent on a: our current reconstruction of the snout being correct, and b: splaying teeth actually making lips impossible (they don’t)

The whole splaying = no lips in spinosaurus argument is kinda iffy. It ignores a lot of other factors

[queen oar]

So, you telling me to put lips on Plesiosaurs? Alright! Yes Sir/Ma'am/General!

[runic heart]

Getting hammered for something I used to hammer people for. Truly this must be karma.

[queen oar]

happens to all of us, really.

[runic heart]

Like what. And how about in plesiosaurs. Elasmosaurs more specifically.

[runic heart]

Yeah ig 😔

[zealous ravine]

With current reconstruction, the anterior snout wouldn’t be able to seal without lips. That already is a big issue for a lipless interpretation. But again these are just reconstructions, the exact splay of the teeth isn’t even known

[queen oar]

I mean, not necessarily, you can do like uuuh... The keratin around the jaws, more thick, if that's the issue.

[zealous ravine]

See the difference here is the teeth interlock and the jaw closes tightly, forming a seal. You can’t do that with current spino recons.

[zealous ravine]

Also no. Rhamphotheca and teeth don’t overlap as a rule. And we don’t see the texture indicative of croc-like tissue on the snout either.

[queen oar]

I don't know how it could be applied to Spino, because I do not plan to draw it, and if I did I would request " 200-600 dollars ".

[zealous ravine]

I don’t know what I’m looking at lol

[queen oar]

alright, not keratin then, so cornified tissue, or modified facial scales, whatever.

[zealous ravine]

At that point that’s literally just lips. Unless you’re suggesting tissue which the teeth are directly embedded in, which also doesn’t really work cause we don’t see the texture you’d expect there

The splay is an interesting thing to consider but still outweighed by the evidence for lips. And I need to emphasize, entirely dependent on how it’s reconstructed. We’d need a skull with a complete, articulated snout and jaw to say with any certainty.

[queen oar]

Not necessarily, maybe a partial extra oral tissue, if we take the modified facial scales alternative, kinda like Jurassic Park and GSP's reconstructions of Theropod faces. Otherwise, the other alternatives... Not really.

[zealous ravine]

Those dont have any basis in actual anatomy unfortunately. At this point to make it lipless you have to invent entirely new soft tissue not seen anywhere else which should immediately be a red flag

[runic heart]

Which is also the argument for it not to have lips

[queen oar]

Wouldn't argue so. It just would mean it's more complex in general, rather than simple. We kinda of already know that Theropods and to some extent Dinosaurs in general, would have tight oral configurations, due to how the kind of teeth they have, so, like Sarq said. The alternative for a lipped Spino, would have to be a Mammalian-like extra oral tissue configuration, or something like extant Archosaurs. Otherwise, in that case, you gonna have to make something that we kinda of don't really have anywhere... Not that I would complain about it, really. I love experimentation, but I think it would be contradictory to your argument.

[zealous ravine]

As an example of what we’d need to say spino was lipless with any certainty, we’d need something like this phytosaur skull. It clearly shows the front of the snout consisted of interlocking teeth with a tight seal, and thus was likely lipless, but the posterior parts have big gaps necessitating lips.

[queen oar]

Kinda what Spinosaurids already have, really. Maybe the exception that I can think of it's maybe Irritator, but pretty sure every single other one, it's similar to that, or convergent to that, really.

[zealous ravine]

See that’s just not true. Giving spinosaurus lips simply requires applying baseline reptilian soft tissue. Nothing special needed. If the splay is actually genuine, it requires slightly more tissue sure, but it’s still the same structure. Lipless requires something entirely new

[zealous ravine]

Don’t think you understand the point here lol. I’m. Or gonna argue this further cause it seems like yall just don’t understand the anatomy at play here but yeah. There’s nothing wrong with giving spino lips, and arguably it’s still the more likely scenario, despite what some people say.

Trust me I have spent a LOT of time looking at this lol.

[queen oar]

I'll press X to doubt, chief.

[zealous ravine]

Go right ahead, but if you ever wanna look more into it please, be my guest. This is all information that’s fairly easy to find.

[queen oar]

How? and Where to find it?

[queen oar]

@zealous ravine Where can WE find that information? If you can offer such lead to us.

[zealous ravine]

First step would probably be looking at how oral soft tissue is constructed in various reptiles. That should give you a good idea

[queen oar]

But, Archosaurs are Thecodonts, and most other reptiles aren't, no?

@zealous ravine They are Thecodonts, right???

[zealous ravine]

I mean yeah but that doesn’t mean much here

[inland orbit]

anyone happen to know how much material there is for koolasuchus? is it just an incomplete set of jaws or is there more?

Is our understanding of how it looked mostly based on siderops?

[queen oar]

It does. Because the way you gonna reconstruct the external tissues, you also have to account for how the internal ones also look like on the jaws. So, what other extant animals have Thecodont teeth?

[queen oar]

Ignore the Crocodiles, Alligators and Caimans, just to clarify.

[zealous ravine]

Mammals

[waxen jewel]

It seems like its just the fragmentary jaws

[zealous ravine]

And again this doesn’t really impact the issues at hand, it really feels like you’re grasping at straws here

[queen oar]

How not? You telling me, that the type of teeth on that animal is not going to matter on the matters of reconstructing the oral configurations that extinct animal likely had?

[elfin pulsar]

Is this lips again

[queen oar]

yuuuuuuup.

[modest pasture]

Jesus Christ this is a constant debate in here…literally every time I check this channel it’s the lip conversation in some way, shape, or form LMFAO

[zealous ravine]

It has some impact but in terms of whether or not spino has lips it’s not nearly as big as the issue of whether or not the jaw can seal to begin with. I’ll be real it seems like you just don’t understand how all this works and frankly I don’t have the time or energy to give a whole lecture lmao

[inland orbit]

Unfortunate. Guess I'll just continue the trend of basing it on siderops.

[modest pasture]

Which is valid, but for me it’s like every time I open this channel gg

[waxen jewel]

It’s the same in professional paleontological circles too lmao

[modest pasture]

one hundred percent correct-actively watched a full knock out drag out between two of my professors a few days ago on lips…I cannot escape this debate no matter how hard I try LMFAOOO

[queen oar]

Sure, I guess If I was more selective with my evidence of reconstructing soft tissues, I would've surely understood more about the topic in question. Telling me, the person who was unhealthy obsessed with this topic for 5 or 4 years, but somehow I don't understand it. Fair enough, and admittedly I'm salty for not getting the opportunity to discuss this further.

[rare bough]

Guys will spinoptodon ever exist

[zealous ravine]

That’s fair. I do find it hard to believe you’ve actually been doing proper research on soft tissue for that long cause I remember your recons from a few years ago and they were rough to say the least lmao

[queen oar]

Should check my more recent works, I guess 🤷

[zealous ravine]

I frankly don’t care

I mean feel free to post them here ig but even what you just posted earlier has a fair few issues

[queen oar]

Gimme a sec, cause I'm trying to see what I haven't posted here before.

[fluid thistle]

I will say people drastically under-apply gum tissue on theropods. Using Sereno's spinosaurus model you can get a seal with gums.

Similar thing with tyrannosaurus rex. That gap in the back of the mouth when the jaw shuts would not be an issue if you apply proper gum tissue.

[queen oar]

@zealous ravine There's a Euoplocephalus I haven't posted anywhere, and my Tyrannosaurus OC couple

[runic heart]

Does the skull break though if it closes all the way?

[zealous ravine]

I mean you’ve definitely improved a bit but yeah those are still… oof

[fluid thistle]

That's what I meant. The gap can be filled with gum tissue easily

[runic heart]

Yuh

[modest pasture]

Not to butt in, but straight up insulting doesn’t exactly feel like a proper debate. Maybe instead of getting increasingly more caustic, suggest improvements idk? Saying “oof” and then furthering to rub salt in the wound is kinda ragebait-y

[queen oar]

I mean, I'm voluntarily posting these to see how you gonna roast me, really. Curiosity, and perhaps a past of toxic behaviour kinda of makes me miss scenarios like these... Wouldn't say I cherish them, due to how I know what they are associated with.

[zealous ravine]

Not great in terms of soft tissue, especially the musculature. I do recommend looking at some myologies and especially the work of Matt Dempsey, could help a lot.

[glossy lagoon]

Since when did you start playing this game lol

[fluid thistle]

Yups. I don't advocate for liplessness in anything more than spinosaurus typically, but I'll have to do more research on how theropod shed their teeth. It has implications in species like tyrannosaurus

[fluid thistle]

I don't, I just joined because I heard about a amplectobelua conversation that I wanted to read over, but it turns out it never happened.

[queen oar]

nah, it's fine, really.

[zealous ravine]

I’m honestly not sure where to start in terms of proper critique. There’s a weird mix of Shrinkwrapping in some places and too much tissue in others.

[queen oar]

Hey, the chat is all yours.

[zealous ravine]

I don’t really have the time unfortunately but again, Matt Dempsey’s work is a great starting point. He’s devoted his career to understanding dinosaur musculature and has created some incredibly helpful guides

[queen oar]

See, people have gave me this advice before, and while I'm grateful for at least have taken some of your attention. I kinda don't really plan to change that style of reconstruction. Mainly cuz, I believe it's more beneficial for me in general. People may not like it, but I kinda of have accepted that reality with any work of mine, really. As long as I don't claim that any of these are " Accurate " or " Definitive restorations " of the animals.

[fluid thistle]

R u real

[zealous ravine]

Oh sure, I just don’t really believe that you understand how these animals’ soft tissue actually works if these are the recons you make

[queen oar]

Sure, still think that is crazy, but I cannot take someone's rights to their own perspectives. I would only suggest for YOU, that in future scenarios like this convo, that you at least illustrate your ideas or what you trying to explain. It doesn't need to necessarily be a good sketch or art, just something that gives enough illustrative information for someone to follow with what you're trying to explain.

[glossy lagoon]

They’re not 😂… it’s a hallucination

[fluid thistle]

I'm inclined to agree 🤖 🤖

[zealous ravine]

If I had time I would but unfortunately I do have a life lol, so not much time for that

[queen oar]

Fair enough.

[waxen jewel]

But you do have the time to get into a drawn out debate about spino lips…

[zealous ravine]

I mean I was on the bus and am now on lunch lol

[queen oar]

I believe it's beneficial for the long term, that we do not get into that. After all, people have a right to how they spend their time.

[runic heart]

I love this particular debate.

[tulip gyro]

on wich side were they?

[fluid thistle]

the wrong side..

[waxen jewel]

I don’t even remember lol. For I think

[zealous ravine]

Spino lips are still up in the air but the evidence for them lacking lips is equivocal at best

[glossy lagoon]

The side which clarifies… they’re an npc

[zealous ravine]

Just to summarize my reasons for saying so, the whole lipless argument depends on two big assumptions. One, that Sereno’s recon of Spino’s skull is entirely correct and they haven’t made any mistakes. And two, that reptile extraoral tissue can’t be very extensive, which doesn’t really hold up.

[tulip gyro]

idk honestly, i kind of tend to lean onto the no lip side, because of their semi aquatic lifestyle, as the teeth get moisturized and "cleaned". as we see in modern crocodilians, they dont have lips because of their semi quatic lifestyle. but idk if there has been any recent news on the lifestyle of spino.

[fluid thistle]

The cross-section of the jaw does look awkward to put lips around. Tosha made a whole argument for why he thinks lipless is more likely. Not sure if he still believes it but he made a pretty good argument

[runic heart]

I used whales as a comparison for lips, but the splayed teeth are what sealed the argument for me. Lipless in the front, lipped in the back.

[queen oar]

see, the thing is that, you can't really make an argument of " What if Sereno's reconstruction is wrong? ", when we kinda of essentially aren't allowed to get our hands on Spinosaurus material in any shape or form?

Oh, figures? Nope. Official reconstructions from the publications? Well, that just is part of the issue. Perhaps some leak somewhere? Absolutely not, they are probably holding that stuff behind 3 steel doors

You can't really imply that a reconstruction could be bad or good, if you don't really have access to the context ( in this case: The material ) it was reconstructed.

[zealous ravine]

I’m not saying it’s bad. Just that we don’t know if it’s right

[queen oar]

I mean, bad or good, wrong or right, you get what I meant.

[fluid thistle]

The way you'd have to root the bottom lip to fit around the maxillary teeth is stupid asf

[runic heart]

Show this compared to the front of suchomimus’s skull.

[balmy oyster]

Cool asshopper i found yesterday

[tulip gyro]

mhh, i honestly believe that crocs are a better comparison, both are reptiles, both have a semi quatic lifestyle, both kind of live in the same habitats. whales are, idk just dont seem that right to me to use them for comparison, as they are purely aquatics.

[zealous ravine]

So then we’re saying the same thing lmao. Using splay as an argument against lips in Spino is kinda pointless when we don’t know if they actually splayed or not

[fluid thistle]

Then again like dilo said I guess we dont know how much the teeth splay. If they were straighter it might be less goofy if we don't know that part for sure

[zealous ravine]

This is assuming the teeth were that long, or the jaw closed that tight, or 100 other things that we don’t know. Personally I think the jaw is closed too far there. It makes a lot more sense if you open it up a tad

[queen oar]

But also the issue is that, that's the only thing we have access to, Dilo. You don't get it, it's not like Brian Engh's Dilophosaurus skull rec where we couldn't object about certain aspects of the reconstruction because we had access to the material. With Spino we simply DO NOT have access to anything, and therefore can't contest/verify

Making the act of doubting it share no weight.

[runic heart]

River dolphins

[zealous ravine]

Genuinely what are you even saying? It seems like you’re arguing that because we can’t say Sereno’s recon is wrong, it must automatically be right, which makes no sense

[balmy oyster]

Ironically a river dolphin would be a better comparison than a crocodile….

[zealous ravine]

Or you’re arguing that we shouldn’t use it at all in this discussion (which is what I’m saying), in which case there’s no evidence for a lack of lips in spino to begin eith

[tulip gyro]

why ? a fully aquatic mammal, just doesnt seem that right for me, maybe you could explain abit ?

[queen oar]

Not that it's right or wrong, just that doubting it would make no sense, when we can't verify it against the material. I'm not saying it's right, i'm just saying that arguing it on the basis of a personnal doubt shares no weight. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just saying that there is no way to say if you are right or wrong on that doubt.

[sudden wind]

https://tenor.com/view/tung-tung-tung-sahur-tung-tung-god-tung-brainrot-gif-1470230787957426753

[fluid thistle]

I agree generally but I also think people should refrain from just slapping lipping over the traditionally splayed skull reconstructions and the material that we're given to work with.

If you want to put lips on it then the skull should be slightly rethought

[zealous ravine]

There’s no evidence for lack of lips in spino, so it makes sense we should stick with the default (lips)

[balmy oyster]

Mainly has to do with facial/skull structure

A phytosaur or even some random benthic eel are better parallels, as a crocodile has a utterly differently shaped skull & lifestyle to spinosaurs (from what we know though)

[queen oar]

you know what? You all tire me. @balmy oyster Fishy boy! Let's go to Africa and capture Ibrahim, to make him publish photos of the material!

[light osprey]

If this in inference to what their oral tissue looks like, crocodiles have a heavily pitted and wrinkled surface to their skull, which spinosaurus does not have, thus there is little reason to draw any direct parallels to life appearance

[balmy oyster]

I’m already halfway there

[zealous ravine]

Lips are the plesiomorphic condition for amniota, so anything without lips should have a reason to lack them. Which spino just doesn’t have.

[queen oar]

Ibrahim right now:
https://tenor.com/view/arriba-gif-12324188786972117417

[zealous ravine]

The funny part is we also do have photos of the relevant material lmao

[queen oar]

Please tell me they are not subject of a ongoing study and you can share them.

[balmy oyster]

Tbf wouldn’t the same reason as pliosaurs possibly be a good application?

As in its teeth from what we know being too splayed out to contain with a agreeable amount of lipage?

[fluid thistle]

Well what he's saying is we don't actually know how splayed the teeth are.

I also think that means we shouldn't slap lips over the current widely-accepted skull recons tho

[zealous ravine]

That’s my entire point. People say the teeth are too splayed but we don’t actually know that. Cause atm with the material we have it’s impossible to determine if they were actually significantly splayed

[queen oar]

@zealous ravine Pleeeeeease! I beg even!

[fluid thistle]

not a real person btw

[balmy oyster]

Ah, I see

Then let us hope the neotype redescription is of good quality and not like 6 pages of random yapping

[zealous ravine]

Literally google it. They have been published already

[queen oar]

You are referring to this?

[zealous ravine]

The various described Spino snouts and the couple isolated dentaries we have. That’s literally our only craniodental material and it’s unfortunately not quite good enough to determine if it splayed or not

Yes

[queen oar]

and this?

[zealous ravine]

That’s literally all we’ve got from this part of the skull. Splay is definitely possible but we just don’t know. Anyways I gotta go but yeah. Calling a spino recon inaccurate or even implausible just because it has lips is frankly stupid

[queen oar]

Tbf, the sockets being placed on a relatively diagonal angle should probably answer it.

[zealous ravine]

We don’t know the angle of the roots tho, it’s possible that the sockets are just exposed on a diagonal

[zealous ravine]

And frankly even in this recon, if you actually close the jaw properly, lips really aren’t an issue

[queen oar]

technically you can see the roots here, and here

[runic heart]

I have noticed that spinosaur and phytosaur skulls are much more similar to each other than either are to crocodiles.

[runic heart]

You could say the same about river dolphins. Some have them, some are half-lipped, like one might assume Spinosaurus to be.

[zealous ravine]

Well sure but river dolphins are a bad analogy to begin with

You’re comparing a highly derived, fully aquatic mammal to a dinosaur that’s still not that far from more terrestrial relatives whose relationship to the water isn’t fully understood but it definitely was nowhere near as aquatic

[queen oar]

Possible analogy, depending on what Spinosaur material we find in the future.

[fluid thistle]

If the jaw is shut past its breaking point then I might reconsider

[zealous ravine]

And the seal thing again but I don’t think people here actually understand that part so I won’t bother.

[queen oar]

also, the roots here and on the other image seem to be diagonal.

[zealous ravine]

Idk how I let myself get suckered into debating the Path chat lmao. This has not been fun.

[waxen jewel]

I gotta say I haven’t found your arguments very convincing since most of them boil down to “but what if tho” without any further elaboration

[runic heart]

I understand it. But there are lipless animals without sealed jaws, yes?

[fluid thistle]

https://media.discordapp.net/stickers/1185671500523651103.gif?size=160&name=Breen+Laugh

[charred hearth]

does mosa got this

[zealous ravine]

No, there aren’t

[waxen jewel]

Yuh

[queen oar]

I kinda don't have any problems with the what if comments, it's just that realistically: If you don't have anything else besides that... That's it. It's just a " What if... "

[runic heart]

I said less plausible.

[zealous ravine]

My entire point is lipless spino is just a giant what if, there’s no good reason to think it’s any more plausible than lipped spino

[waxen jewel]

Exactly because all of that can work in the reverse

“What if it’s wrong?” ok well what if it isn’t?

[light osprey]

Lips are plesiomorphic for river dolphins too

[zealous ravine]

I have no issue with making spino lipless, just don’t call lipped spino less plausible cause it isn’t

[queen oar]

then it becomes a loop lol.

[runic heart]

Yeah. I’m curious, where do you stand on this?

[light osprey]

If there was a fossil iniid would not assume it didn’t have lips

[glossy lagoon]

Other than the fact… spinosaurus’s teeth are huge, and they do Infact splay out from the root, and base of the tooth.… they don’t curve back inward like shakiras hips

[zealous ravine]

I’m not gonna get into this again lmao, I’ve laid out the reasons this is not a good argument multiple times at this point, feel free to read my other messages

[waxen jewel]

Listen I don’t mean to attack your character but all throughout this debate I’ve been seeing glimpses of a mildly egotistical attitude from you, where several times you’ve refused to elaborate on your points because you assume we won’t understand

[queen oar]

Dilo's lunch time is over, guys. Let's move on!

[charred hearth]

its getting serious in here

[zealous ravine]

I mean kinda yeah simply cause most people here don’t. It’s Path chat, there’s a reason most people who are actually knowledgeable steer clear lmao

[queen oar]

@zealous ravine What do you think of this cat?

[zealous ravine]

Idk I’m not a mammal guy.

[light osprey]

The teeth look plausibly splayed to me, many cetaceans also have splayed teeth, most don’t have crocodile faces, but maybe the shape of spinosaurus’ mandible is little odd

[zealous ravine]

Felid anatomy especially is weird and I haven’t looked into it a ton

[waxen jewel]

And that’s where the ego comes in

[charred hearth]

i just feel like we're getting off track, does it matter if they have a ego?

[inland orbit]

sorry to come in with questions again. I am trying to find information on a potentially giant temnospondyl nicknamed "The Beast of Lesotho"

information seems vanishingly sparse despite there being plenty of paleoart of it, and the fossil being found in 1970. I can't even find a wiki page on the thing.

[runic heart]

Can’t imagine the lower jaw of a cetacean has a similar thing going on, right?

[queen oar]

@zealous ravine What do you think of these lipped Theropods?

[zealous ravine]

If that’s what you wanna think go right ahead, I frankly don’t care. Path chat is a land of misinformation and confidently incorrect folks. Most people here genuinely just don’t know what they’re talking about. Which is fine normally but makes genuine discussion difficult

[charred hearth]

@warped peak i apologize for the ping but i know you know a thing or two about prehestoric amphibians, do you know anything about this?

[zealous ravine]

Not great, both have some pretty significant issues. Lips also aren’t even done right

[queen oar]

LMFAO

[waxen jewel]

Yes, because it gets in the way of constructive debate

Several times they had the opportunity to provide insightful reasoning behind their arguments but didn’t on the assumption that we “wouldn’t get it”

Ego has no place in scientific discussion

[zealous ravine]

Trust me I have tried to give some grace and be patient with this chat but they have proven time and time again that it’s pointless, so I’ve given up

[glossy lagoon]

Considering they’ve got an ego like my ugly ex… indeed it does

[fluid thistle]

You're not real

[charred hearth]

i dont care about your ugly ex?

[warped peak]

It does exist, but it's a fragment of a snout bone. That being said, it's an unrivaled fragment so it's not entirely unreliable

It's not diagnostic enough outside of size to be determined as any confident identity

[waxen jewel]

Because you refuse to say anything more intelligent than “nuh uh”

[queen oar]

what about this one?

[glossy lagoon]

That’s not relevant to me you dung pouch

[fluid thistle]

lol

[zealous ravine]

I have, you’re either engaging in a bad faith argument or you haven’t read the conversation

[light osprey]

I never like these silly attempts to guess at the shape of a lip, lips probably look weird in cross section view for many animals. Here are some cetaceans

[charred hearth]

check yourself before you wreck yourself

[inland orbit]

Is there a name or anything else to really go on beyond "probably a large brachyopoid"

[warped peak]

Not really no

[zealous ravine]

Definitely better, a couple issues but nothing major

[glossy lagoon]

You’re from a galaxy far far away you gyro merchant

[queen oar]

tbf, facial tissues are pretty variable in a lot of animals. They don't vary beyond what is expected, just to be clear

[foggy river]

it doesnt help that pot paleo chat is split among people who are new and learning, people who know a lot but struggle to explain it or dont want to, and people arguing in bad faith
it makes it difficult to engage
But imo if you're going to engage, engage for the people that actually care, and consider that the people being problematic are not repersentative of the whole
Most people who actually care come in here and are chased down by people looking down on them or having the worst takes possible

I lurk a lot and honestly im erally interested in the points about spinosaurus but because i dont have fundamental skill in anatomical reconstruction across reptiles to spino i dont know how i personally could follow that, vs hearing frmo some experts etc who have already spread it out

[fluid thistle]

It's undescribed so that's probably why there's no wiki or real information on it

[inland orbit]

Unfortunate. Well thanks anyways!

Sidenote, favorite temnospondyl?

[charred hearth]

https://tenor.com/view/stan-twitter-nurse-britney-12-hours-after-my-shift-confused-nurse-gif-8510731316571023365

[zealous ravine]

Oh what fun, racism in my path chat. <@&538079608914968587> I believe it may be time to step in

[waxen jewel]

You can posture on your intellectualism all you want but at the end of the day nothing you’ve said amounts to anything more than casting doubt with no substance since you keep withholding your reasoning for your arguments

[coral forge]

there might be a reason for the sparse information

[warped peak]

Collidosuchus or Archegosaurus

[queen oar]

<@&538079608914968587>

[zealous ravine]

That’s fair. It’s what I tried to do for a while but after enough bad faith arguments you kinda lose patience.

[light osprey]

Are you saying they are or not variable

[zealous ravine]

Again, if you’re gonna attack my character at least look at what I’ve said. The things you’re accusing me of are just wrong, plain and simple.

[glossy lagoon]

That’s not even racist 😂

[queen oar]

It is variable, but generally, it's just the same tissues modified for usage in the context of that species.

[light osprey]

Well yes

[foggy river]

I totally get it
theres a reason i dont talk much here, i get ragebaited so easily its not even funny

that said i get not wanting to repeat urself, but one thing to consider is that most ppl asking for more are in good faith, and just genuinely do not know how to do things
its hard to kinda pull those groups apart but

[stiff osprey]

tl;dr while current models suggest spino had splayed teeth and thus is impractical to lip, these current models are based on very little evidence (a couple of snouts that aren't widely agreed to be from spino) and people are free to depict it lipped if they want

[light osprey]

Nothing ever matters!

[queen oar]

I mean, yeah, definetly. People aren't really going to get crucified for doing lipped spino, I just don't think that arguing that one model is more likely than the other based on doubt with no substance is a good way to start a conversation, really.

[coral forge]

I feel like half of the arguments in this channel can be resolved by just going "we literally have no way of definitively proving this, so just do whatever you want lol"

[raw magnet]

Hail friends. I'd like to remind everyone to please be polite and respectful to other members. Refer to our #rules.

[foggy river]

that problem goes both ways tho unfort

Theres also
this is probably the case
but I think it isnt, therefore I am right and it is wrong
and it spirals

[modest pasture]

Thank you for this reminder goat <3

[zealous ravine]

Which is exactly what I’ve been saying this entire time lmao. Neither model is more likely so criticizing a recon because it has lips is dumb

[craggy trench]

Sinosauropteryx is smelly

[runic heart]

So they might not have been all that splayed

[waxen jewel]

I’m saying these things because I genuinely want to understand both sides of this debate and I’m frustrated. I want to know why you think the things you do but you continually assume that I and others aren’t smart enough to understand

I’ve been reading this entire debate and I find your arguments unconvincing for the sole reason that you won’t explain why you think the way you do

[foggy river]

im going to turn your insides into outsides

also yeah
i guess its interesting cause a lot of the spino lip thing was like, semi informal right?

[fluid thistle]

Criticizing a recon that puts lips on the splayed version is questionable though. Like I was saying straighten the teeth instead of trying to fit lips on something unnecessarily

[stiff osprey]

they were def splayed to some degree but not like an elasmosaur or anhanguerid which are guaranteed lipless animals

[coral forge]

did bro just insult Yutyrannus 💔

[craggy trench]

Yutyrannus is my son and love him

[light osprey]

Idk about this splaying thing I’m finding animals with big obstructive teeth that are tucking them away behind non muscular faces. I’m sure there’s some threshold, like when plesiosaur caniniform-looking teeth just jut out at a million different angles and sizes but eh

[foggy river]

Well, i personally don't think you love him. it's subjective after all

[coral forge]

then why call his babies smelly :(

[queen oar]

Dilo, in no way intending to drag this conversation further. But, there has been instances where you did say that lipped was a more likely model... Unless, it was like excitement of the moment, and you know? We say something without thinking. But, otherwise, a lot of your points have been mainly to criticize arguments associated with reasoning of Spinosaurus being lipless, which, to some extent, you don't really show that sorta of counterargument or hesitance, towards lipped reconstruction, in multiple times. I'll leave, and hope you and everyone can sort out or conclude this conversation.

[craggy trench]

well sino might be his baby
and its cause its pnoodles fav dino

[waxen jewel]

Some people use insults as a love language

[stiff osprey]

What does non muscular face mean in this context

[zealous ravine]

In my personal opinion it is more likely yes. But on an objective level it’s hard to say either is

[light osprey]

The terrestrial mammal has a muscle cheek that can cover its big canines, whereas the whale does not

[foggy river]

the difference between opinion and objective was a lil hard to follow, ty for explaining that

[stiff osprey]

The spinus is half aquatic, so it would have cheeks on one side and not the other

[runic heart]

Isn’t the lower jaw being so thin a factor as well?

Also this giant argument was probably my fault. Again. Sorry guys.

[stiff osprey]

That's assuming that the lower and upper jaws belong on the same animal and same growth stage, which is unknown

[light osprey]

The maxilla is wider than the mandible in all these toothed theropods

The mighty Varanus komodoensis is tucking its upper teeth into a big fat pocket in its lips too

[waxen jewel]

Komodos honestly got some insane lippage. Even with their mouth fully open you still can’t see their teeth most of the time

[fluid thistle]

Their closure is interesting though because the mandible appears to curve to fit the maxillary teeth

[runic heart]

Ohhhh that makes sense. Is there anything to draw from other spinosaurids that were probably lipped, in this case? Like suchomimus or something?

[light osprey]

Curves in what way that is special to ‘fitting’ maxillary teeth in the context of oral tissue. In dorsal view the Varanus mandible/maxilla have a convex rounded shape, much like how the Spinosaur’s maxilla and dentary are parallel towards the anterior apex of their face

Many a aquatic animal have posteriorly lengthened symphysis which typically means narrow mandible

[fluid thistle]

After another look, Varanus komodoensis doesnt have the specific condition I was thinking of

[light osprey]

There is basically no meaningful signal to indicate the lip or lipless unless it is a crocodilian or has no teeth

[stiff osprey]

Occlusion is not comparable in these two animals, the komodo's teeth do not go halfway past the lower jaw

But see my previous point (we do not know how jaw occlusion actually was in Spinosaurus)

[misty scarab]

crocodilian immune systems are cool

[light osprey]

This is where I google “cetacean skull” and many a bizarre creature where the anterior mandibular teeth sit in front of the maxilla. Is somewhat repetitive sounding but there are like two living amniote groups to compare and we typically focus on just the one.

[stiff osprey]

The mandibular teeth go in front of the maxilla?

[light osprey]

Oh yes

[stiff osprey]

Forgive the shitpost quality i am outside

[runic heart]

Would irritator be a good comparison for Spinosaurus “lipage” or nah?

[stiff osprey]

According to olof (one of the authors of the Irritator "redescription") it was probably lipped to some extent

The palate bones prevent the mouth from occluding tightly enough for the mouth to seal without lips

[light osprey]

The whale is a pathway to many abilities some considered to be unnatural

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/Dexerto/status/2048860875398758524

Dexerto (@Dexerto)

A 60-ton animatronic dinosaur was engulfed in flames after being struck by lightning

Firefighters prevented the fire from spreading to other dinosaurs, stopping an extinction-level event

X · Apr 27, 2026, 8:24 PM

[runic heart]

You say that Spinosaurus having a thinner lower jaw might result in said lower jaw being from a younger specimen. Is there a complete enough relative that might suggest this was the case?

[stiff osprey]

Jurassic world fallen kingdom

[ashen wedge]

https://preview.redd.it/how-did-lightning-affect-large-sauropods-v0-w5bn55o38cdf1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=f317f0035e850ab6d03a81052b811421410c15ce
I guess this happened

[stiff osprey]

We have partial jaws from Kem Kem that are larger and proportionally wider than the aegyptiacus holotype

[hot peak]

Know what these are

[stiff osprey]

NHMUK VP 16421 and some other scrap

[runic heart]

Oh wait Mirabilis too.

[hot peak]

You own a jaw

[stiff osprey]

Sadly no, it is illegal here