paleontology

[undone rapids]

Random is a Jawless Fish!!

[hot peak]

I have 5 spino teeth

[runic heart]

What’s the “splayage” like for Mirabilis?

[stiff osprey]

mirabilis is just as much of a composite skull as aegyptiacus is

[undone rapids]

eh its a bit better than that

[stiff osprey]

if it's from africa, carcharodontosaurid or maybe abelisaur

[runic heart]

I thought we had lower jaw stuff?

[undone rapids]

We do have a bit from JEN 2 and JEN 7 iirc

[runic heart]

Unrelated, but is megalodon still chunky? Or did that lengthening study really change it up.

[fossil ingot]

Why is this mf so Ugly I am sorry

[runic heart]

CGI is good, but I was saying the feathering was quite a bit much. And I also made the mistake of mentioning the lips…

[fossil ingot]

Idk what to feel about feathered Baby Spino lol

[runic heart]

Yeah I don’t like it either. It would have been a little better if the feathering was much thinner. Like fuzz.

[fossil ingot]

Lips on Spinosaurus specifically is rather Yikes tbh
Atleast for Spino Itself
Stuff for Sucho or Bary I can understand

[runic heart]

Idk, we just had a huge argument started by me on accident, and it ended with “spinosaurus teeth might not be as splayed as often depicted, so lips are fine if you want”

[fossil ingot]

It mainly depends on the skull retcon used anyways

[runic heart]

Yeah

[fossil ingot]

Anyways here the concept art

[runic heart]

Adult kinda chunky for a spino

[paper parcel]

Average cursed phases mod

[rancid dove]

[white matrix]

I noticed life started getting worse when feathers on dinosaurs became the dogma

[paper parcel]

Nah

[spice latch]

He’s just big boned

[stiff osprey]

Correlation not causation, life started getting worse because the death of harambe split the timeline

[paper parcel]

The death of nature fr

[white matrix]

harambe reference in 2026 now I know you're unc lol (still RIP)

[vestal frigate]

Feathery Dinos are to die for 🩷

[outer tusk]

hello, soctt hartman

[hot peak]

Mine from the Ken Ken beds

[paper parcel]

Misread this as fantasy dinos and was going to start ranting about madrehorn just being palaeoloxodon namadicus

[stiff osprey]

Most likely carcharodontosaurus then

[runic heart]

Miguel’s new megalodon art. Was megalodon still chunky or nah?

Cause there was that paper that lengthened the spine.

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/Visceral9000/status/2048798834290016497

🦎Visceral🪶 (Tomistoma enjoyer🐊) (@Visceral9000)

And then creationists still have the nerve to say “oh, where are the transitional species?”

Like dawg we are finding new ones every other week 😭

X · Apr 27, 2026, 4:18 PM

[stiff osprey]

But where is the transitional species between the pakicetus and the ambulocetus? There isn't one. Evolution proven FAKE

The transitional species argument has never not been a joke, because transitional species have always existed, but when you show one evolution deniers will just go "well where's the transition between (species you just showed) and (next species in the evolutionary line)? lol dumass"

[little mauve]

Amazing that archaeopteryx was found just 2 years after The Origin of Species was published

[outer tusk]

you mean lemon shark megalodon, yeah nah

[runic heart]

So what did the study really change then

[whole gull]

Hola

[tender dove]

No, it didn't look like a great white shark

[outer tusk]

it did but it does also have its issues as it just scales a lemon shark to fit the suppose "hydrodynamic" of the animal and a good pal of mine by the name of Battlechampion did a greta overeview of his issues on the paper some may overlooked or ignore

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/HodariNundu/status/2048645483220869179/photo/3

Hodari Shadowalker ❄️🐆 (@HodariNundu)

I love you, Cretaceous kraken. You are good for my health :B

X · Apr 27, 2026, 6:08 AM

[charred hearth]

is this the most overhyped animal in 2026?

[bright veldt]

Hodari really needs to be looked at as someone who just makes cool art instead of someone to take seriously for rigorous paleoart and speculation. Cause the latter two are rarely true.

[balmy oyster]

See he gets it

[balmy oyster]

Wasn’t this just the entirety of a futurama episode

[charred hearth]

maybe your right https://x.com/HodariNundu/status/2022519065261072653/photo/1

Hodari Shadowalker ❄️🐆 (@HodariNundu)

So a Barosaurus specimen was described that has a preserved end tail vertebra, with potential irrigation for soft tissue extensions so I gave it a rattle or sort of wind chime thing to make warning sounds to scare predators AND send her young into hiding if danger shows up :B

X · Feb 14, 2026, 3:51 AM

[paper parcel]

Could humans survive the jurassic, currently outside camping irl

[warped peak]

Too many variables to even gest

[stiff osprey]

The main threat wouldn't be the dinosaurs or oxygen levels, but probably lack of edible plants

[warped peak]

A Hominid in general could absolutely survive, but modern humans are incredibly specialized to our modern, agricultural world

[charred hearth]

would the paleogene be survivable? i'd imagine it would have some edible plants for us

[deft shuttle]

What was the decision on the spino lips genuinely curious im not a paleontologyst but that got heated and I wanna know now

[warped peak]

Modern humans would, realistically, not survive well in any abrupt period of time

We are incredibly specialized to a world shaped by human culture

[stiff osprey]

You'd need to bring seeds, find the right conditions to grow them (likely rare given different soil composition), and have a lasting enough food supply to not starve until you can grow more. And not go insane or catch a jurassic super virus in the meantime

[frigid delta]

do non-avian dinosaurs really go roar or, according to some people, cannot go roar?

[stiff osprey]

Though if you're only there for a few days then you'd be fine probably

[warped peak]

And not to forget livestock either. And being in an area with ideal mineral deposits

Humans sustain off of our cultural adaptations, not our physical ones. Without preparation, we struggle with much more than a camping trip, especially in larger groups

[ionic linden]

hi

[stiff osprey]

A roar is just a deep and loud noise that is audible to human ears, if a jet engine can roar then so can a dinosaur

[little mauve]

Mmmm fiddleheads

[frigid delta]

then why do some ppl would say that dinos couldn't roar bcuz they lack of larynx and instead produced lower, more subtle sounds, such as honks, hisses, booms, or bird-like coos?
or is what i'm talking abt is actually an outdated info?

[tough parcel]

The guy designing Godzilla’s roar in 1954

[light osprey]

The image inspired me

[little mauve]

Why do people think dinosaurs lacked a larynx? Crocs have one

[stiff osprey]

Their definition of roar is overly specific and mammal focused, crocodylians can and do produce sounds any reasonable person would describe as a roar

[light osprey]

Ignoring that clearly occlusal is different in the two animals lol.

[hot peak]

Got this today for $400

[light osprey]

Isn’t there something about syrinx-esque structure in some non-avian?

[little mauve]

Yeah a nodosaur

[light osprey]

Would be strange, and pretty much secondarily acquired I think? Unless the ancestral dinosaurian syrinx is like a duck

[frigid delta]

like a Deinocheirus?

[light osprey]

as in a duck syrinx, which differs in some aspects from Neoaves syrinx

[little mauve]

Always seemed strange to me, I'm not totally convinced, but yeah it would have to be secondarily acquired. Maybe "syrinx-like structure" is more appropriate

[light osprey]

The experts say otherwise! Please quack your tyrannosaurus!

[stiff osprey]

Pinacosaurus has a larynx, Pulaosaurus does too, I've only heard of syrinxes in fossil birds

[light osprey]

Birds have larynx too

[little mauve]

What am I thinking of, some armored dinosaur with a preserved voice box

[stiff osprey]

That's pinaco

[stiff osprey]

As do I, but i lack a syrinx

[little mauve]

Ah okay, why did I think it was syrinx like, my bad. Must have got my wires crossed

[stiff osprey]

To be fair i'm not clear on the difference myself. Just that the pinaco paper says syrinxes have never been found in nonavians

[little mauve]

Oh I see i got it from the paper conflating the two lol

[light osprey]

The way the larynx is built might imply there is a syrinx like structure producing noise with laryngeal modification of sound

[light osprey]

Scratch that actually, I think Paleognaths have slightly simpler syrinx?

[little mauve]

Forgot that ankylosaurs have longer lagena than any other dinosaur, hearing and vocal communication may indeed have been important for them but it would have likely been the typical large dinosaur lower frequency ranges

[balmy oyster]

Cus none preserved so we can’t prove (some ornithischians have theirs preserved I believe)

[patent mist]

Pulaosaurus has a larynx/ syrinx iirc

[little mauve]

Yeah Pinacosaurus and Pulaosaurus have preserved larynx, not syrinx

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/EarthArchivesHQ/status/2048840161245401457 thoughts on their return?

wait, are those beluga's in the background?

Earth Archives (@EarthArchivesHQ)

A 5-million-year-old fossil with embedded shark teeth suggests great white relatives once hunted in the North Sea—and could return as waters warm.

Image credit: Alexander Lovegrove

https://t.co/enQy7gYMZR

#fossils #paleontology

X · Apr 27, 2026, 7:02 PM

[outer tusk]

that's a weird looking GWS relative

[little mauve]

It's not, it's a bluntnosed sixgill. Explained in the article but the twitter post is clickbaity

[balmy oyster]

“This dinosaur is a close relative to the trex and got larger than it!” ahh headline

[little mauve]

Warming seas may drive MEGALODON RELATIVES into populated beach areas

[balmy oyster]

[light osprey]

I don’t think it has to do with temperature, Carcharodon lives in much cooler oceans of the Bering Sea, St. Lawrence Gulf, Japan Sea, and Scotia Sea

[mental cloak]

No way,sherlock?

https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/us/goodbye-to-the-t-rex-from-jurassic-park-a-new-study-argues-that-it-didnt-run-like-a-giant-reptile-but-with-a-gait-much-more-similar-to-that-of-an-ostrich/articleshow/130510695.cms
Link if u guys wanna see the ""news"" articule

[frigid delta]

AI...
why is it have to be AI...

[mental cloak]

Ikr?
We have million of images of trez why they used a.i on this??

[inland orbit]

@warped peak hey, sorry to bother. I am trying to find the upper estimate for koolasuchus, and i can't find a consistent number. I am getting everything from 3 meters to 6 when i try to look into it.

[warped peak]

The upper estimate is about 3.5 meters

[mental cloak]

Guys
Irritator is coming back to brazil!

[inland orbit]

so something like this is just scaled entirely incorrect then it would seem?

[spice latch]

Where’s oxalaia, genny.

[mental cloak]

gulp

[warped peak]

Yes, never trust david peters

[mental cloak]

Why is always the peters?
Ken peters with sonic
David peters with paleontology

[inland orbit]

this one is accurate then?

[inland orbit]

hey uh... not sure how to say this but that example is exactly 4 meters long...

[warped peak]

shrug it's a better source than the numbers I remember offhand

[inland orbit]

when i scale it so the box fits in 1m grid and put against another reference image

[tough parcel]

The general length might be the same but proportionately, there's notable differences, the first that stood out to me is that Peter's version has a skull ~1 meter large

[warped peak]

Yep you did it right, it's 4m then. almost exactly lol

[inland orbit]

it's like an almost pixel perfect 4 meters lol

either way, useful reference for my needs. thank you!

[queen oar]

@runic rover

[frigid delta]

what are the differences between saurus & saura?

[mental cloak]

Isnt saura like
Feminitive of saurus?
Like Maiasaura
Idk im not an expert on that

[hybrid temple]

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8g7LYVu/

[little mauve]

Yes saura is the feminine version of saurus

[charred hearth]

this whole thing about it is starting to make me dislike it, it just feels like, idk, is this what someone who dosent like megalodon feels like everytime it gets mentioned?

[thorn grove]

is that how people are talking about this thing I've been largely out of paleo circles for a couple weeks

[hybrid temple]

I am only sharing because I like it and was excited

[hallow spear]

Her vids are catered too much to people with 1 brain cells, a lot of what she shows jsut straight up isn’t true or exaggerated for views. I dislike her content tbh

[charred hearth]

basically, people speak about it like its average size is 19m, ate mosa on the daily, and was a hyper intellegent apex predator that nothing, not even REX, was safe from

[hybrid temple]

Gee thanks. And good to know

[charred hearth]

i know mcraeensis is happy that no one loves it so it dosent get beat up to showcase another animal thats overhyped

[thorn grove]

well octopus can go on land for a little bit so clearly a 19 meter squid would do so just to spite rex

[mental cloak]

Damn didnt know she was..like that

[hallow spear]

I mean honestly as long as you don’t take everything she says at face value it’s fine but people usually do

[charred hearth]

who would you rather be told paleo info from, tier zoo son, lindsay nikole daughter or casual geographic nonbinary child

[hybrid temple]

The video was on my fyp. I honestly like the giant octo

[charred hearth]

isnt it giant squid size?

[thorn grove]

it's like giant squid+ length but closer to colossal squid proportions I.E. very girthy

at least going by the art idrk details tbh

[charred hearth]

this is a skeletal @balmy oyster made, edited by @frigid delta

[thorn grove]

that appears less extreme, just eyeballing it it's probably around the size of a colossal squid

[charred hearth]

is it me or does it closely ressemble a vampire squid? i wonder why, i hope fishy can answer when hes online

[thorn grove]

it does actually

also colossal squid are smaller than i remembered this thing is still huge even if not 19 m

[balmy oyster]

You eyeballed wrong

[charred hearth]

my god

[thorn grove]

I realized as such yea

[balmy oyster]

I presumed since all cirrate octopods we have nowadays are very derived deep dwelling animals, the body proportions of this thing would likely be more akin to other related cephalopods at the time while still having most of the cirrina features for what it is

[charred hearth]

fishy , if you take suggestions / requests, could we see a comparison of it with Parapuzosia?

[balmy oyster]

Yes, and some other things too

[charred hearth]

what was its main prey? ammonites?

[balmy oyster]

Seems likely, the beak showed signs of wear indicating biting on hard surfaces, so either ammonites and/or large clams/mussels

[charred hearth]

im gonna assume one of its only predators would be mosa?

[balmy oyster]

Well it also overlapped with pliosaurs a little so I’d imagine it would be hassled around by them for a while

[charred hearth]

it'd still be able to shoot out ink right?

[balmy oyster]

Ink was present by true squids when they diverged so yes

[charred hearth]

alright one last question, how does it fair in size with sperm whales?

[balmy oyster]

It’d be like a calamari buffet

[charred hearth]

sperm whales time traveling back in time to get a cretaceous calamari feast:

and nothing in those oceans gonna stop them 😭

well, nothing in our current oceans stop them either so

[balmy oyster]

The dreaded 17 ton mosasaur that the same paper brought up but was never mentioned again

[night flare]

Is there any studies or projects concerning mix or bio engineer Bird and Reptile D.N.A.?

[charred hearth]

do you have the quote or paragraph refrencing it?

[balmy oyster]

No but there id rhus

[light osprey]

Pretty sure that’s not in reference to some cryptic mega specimen is just a bad estimate

[balmy oyster]

Considering the 19 meter octopus I’m inclined to believe that is true

[charred hearth]

what gets oversized more, nanaimoseluthis or megalodon

the most over-estimated animal of today vs the most over-estimated animal of history

[balmy oyster]

Somehow nanaimo has been getting downsized consistently more than upsized so probably megalodon

[mental cloak]

@frigid delta

[charred hearth]

who's got the greater downsize? perecetus or nanaimo? like, percentage wise or their mass

[mental cloak]

Its kinda impressive that it is getting downsized that fast lol

[charred hearth]

i wonder what was downsized faster, perecetus or nanimo

[tough parcel]

Perucetus was shot a few hours after description

[mental cloak]

Shot with the downsizenator 4000

[opaque kayak]

Discord downsized perucetus 6 hours after the paper dropped 💔

[balmy oyster]

Perucetus went through 2 - 3 different downsized lazers, poor thing never stood a chance

[frigid delta]

...how long and heavy is Peru now as of April 2026?

[tough parcel]

Perucetus when Randomdinos woke up

[charred hearth]

isnt perecetus like, 40 tons?

[mental cloak]

Also i didnt know Xiphactinus was a bony fish

[balmy oyster]

Yes, same with bonnericthys

[mental cloak]

Cool!

[charred hearth]

i still have no clue how perecetus ate or how it fed

[balmy oyster]

It was 60 - 70 for a while but then it was beaten with a stick again

[mental cloak]

With its mouth/j

[charred hearth]

everytime a large marine animal gets discovered, megalodon absorbs their size to increase its own and decrease theirs

[mental cloak]

His greed sickens me.

[charred hearth]

whats megalodons current estimates? 90 tons?

[frigid delta]

from my remembrance, 60 to 130 tons

[charred hearth]

WHAT.....

[balmy oyster]

Megalodon still remains huge despite it all

[charred hearth]

3 things remain definite

rex is the largest therapod
argentinasaurus is the largest land animal
and blue whale remains the largest animal of all

[thorn grove]

I will overtake them all

[frigid delta]

1000-THR "Earthmover"

[charred hearth]

what the hell is a ultra kill

[balmy oyster]

https://tenor.com/view/watch-you-tone-machine-boi-gif-1669265049360956308

[wind prairie]

I game I should play eventually tmk

[bright veldt]

Megalodon's current weight is like 30-95 tons depending on the individual. While the lemon shark shape probably isn't accurate, that elongated frame does broadly match what we nowadays expect.

[runic rover]

?

[balmy oyster]

!

[opaque kayak]

https://tenor.com/view/scared-dog-scared-white-dog-shivering-dog-shivering-white-dog-white-dog-gif-2684151111772069591

[balmy oyster]

Big fish

[waxen jewel]

“Problematicus” what my man do??

[astral valve]

yummy tuna

[coral forge]

it has "Leeds" in its name

[waxen jewel]

I don’t know how that’s significant humor me please

[coral forge]

it's a place in England

[waxen jewel]

Ok can someone other than this guy explain?

[steep atlas]

It's a place in England

[waxen jewel]

[maiden beacon]

the specific name comes from it being hard to reconstruct and understand

[tribal whale]

[waxen jewel]

Thank you for giving me an actual answer

[maiden beacon]

no problem, the full name just translates to 'problematic leeds fish'

[coral forge]

and being british

[glossy lagoon]

Poor place with a poor football team

[stable sun]

94 t

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/i0lanthe_/status/2048968944506060894

⚓🐛io (@i0lanthe_)

Im.sick look at this baby nautilus. Thats a real guy. Hes out there

X · Apr 28, 2026, 3:33 AM

[mental cloak]

:3

[stable sun]

where is the dying mosasaur

[charred hearth]

it was devoured in a instant

[full lagoon]

The tiny little mouth ❤️‍🩹

[mental cloak]

Nomnomnom

[mental cloak]

God this thing-s size changed so fkin much that idk what size is it

[rare bough]

what tooth is that

[charred hearth]

fish vs neeco

[granite thicket]

Suddenly its fighting against xiphactinus for life

[charred hearth]

which shape is more accurate?

[granite thicket]

All we have is a beak so who knows?

[charred hearth]

better contrast

[granite thicket]

I think the black silluette is more reasonable
Don't think there's a squid or octopus with arms that long proportion to its mantle besides stuff like bigfin squid

[charred hearth]

@sudden wind may i ask why you chose to gave it the longer shape instead of the more commonly depicted one?

[balmy oyster]

Yeah no this beak is way too small

The beak size in the paper was stated to represent roughly 10% of the entire beak, this is just plain wrong

The upper beak is just way too small for the lower beak because of this 😭 probably are cephalopods like this but I seriously doubt the one which was stated to bite through hard surfaces wouldn’t have a capable beak

[balmy oyster]

There are within the same clade, but they’re the equivalent of vampire squids being used for enchoteuthis or something

[granite thicket]

Yeah but I don't think there's a reason to choose such extreme proportions like the white one

[balmy oyster]

Other people have, I believe it coincides with the provided formula (but even then may be a tad bit too long also I still scaled with a cirroteuthis and was able to get what I got instead)

[granite thicket]

I do not know much about cephalopods so ok

[balmy oyster]

But yeah otherwise the size isn’t exactly wrong, it’s just on the smaller side. Main issue is just how the beak is reconstructed

[granite thicket]

Don't all cephalopods have an underbite btw?
I can see the beak being slightly longer but not by much

[balmy oyster]

No?

[granite thicket]

Wait some cephalopods have longer upper beak than the lower one?

[balmy oyster]

The “overbite” thing is just on some cephalopods, not all

[runic rover]

...I am scared of pressing that "spoiler" button

[queen oar]

Megalosaurus

[runic rover]

Oh well, could be much worse tbh it actually looks great! Good job!

(Yeah I knew, we talked about megalo)

[balmy oyster]

That ain’t megalo 😭

[queen oar]

it is.

[balmy oyster]

Why is the skull so ceratosaur-like

[sudden wind]

It isn't me, it's Dragonthunders who did this based on Cirrata octopus and some math equations helping to predict body size and mantle size.

[charred hearth]

ah alright

[queen oar]

oh no no, see, most of that is just soft tissues.

[sudden wind]

This is the larger specimen described in the paper. Mind you, if you give this animal a 4 meters mantle size it gets even smaller proportionally.

[paper parcel]

I am surprised megalosaurs aren't talked more about(outside of funky paleoart)

[queen oar]

@balmy oyster

[balmy oyster]

If you just move your eyes down a liiiiittlleee bit from the message you replied to you would see why it’s wrong.

Use whatever body length you want but the reconstruction ignored the estimated beak proportions in the paper.

There’s also little to prove it had the EXACT proportions of a modern day cirrina octopod but this is a slightly different argument, as the paper does utilise formulas around these cephalopods

[balmy oyster]

I see, the small nub for the skull crest base is nice

[sudden wind]

The rostral part, which has been lost by wear, was reconstructed from striations, original ornamentation of the jaw surface (Fig. 1) (31). The length of this lost part at the rostral tip is ~5.7 mm in N. jeletzkyi and ~10.6 mm in N. haggarti, which amounts to ~10% of the total jaw length for each species

The recovered fossil is not 10% of what the entire beak would be. The 10% correspond to the portion that's lost in total length.

[queen oar]

See, now I have like, actually, 3 options here

Either: Utahraptor, Camarasaurus or Giganotosaurus

[sudden wind]

So, you just misinterpreted what was said in the paper

[paper parcel]

Guys I have a theory on nanotyrannus(first image is torvosaurus)

[balmy oyster]

Or—hear me out—maybe shrinking the beak to its absolute minimum doesn’t get you anywhere anyways other than being pedantic

[sudden wind]

How is it shrinking the beak when you apply the measurements? I expect DT to at least be this rigorous

[queen oar]

This stupid Octopus will be the new " Lips vs Lipless debate " lol

[iron halo]

lipped octopus

[paper parcel]

Trex came from torvosaurus trust. That's where the t comes from. Tyrannosaurus=Torvosaurus

[glossy lagoon]

That’s not a megalosaurus

[coral forge]

What is the theory
Nanotyrannus = Torvosaurus?

[outer tusk]

I don't think that's how soft tissue should be like

[runic heart]

Could the lip design here be because theropod lower jaws are thinner than the upper jaw?

[queen oar]

Say Kuitaran, what if I challenged you to a reconstruction challenge?

[scenic flame]

no, it's just a mistake

[tender dove]

That's from Walking With Dinosaurs 2025

[exotic quest]

The lip design lowkey just looked like it had exposed teeth and then they got rid of them

[outer tusk]

sure

[runic heart]

Apparently it’s not. Some kind of unpublished theory. A “wait for the paper” among the many others.

[queen oar]

What dinosaur would you choose?

@outer tusk Or better, we can do a Cetacean, what do you say? Go full-circle

[stiff osprey]

What are we supposed to be seeing in this image

[tough parcel]

The evil overhang

[paper parcel]

Torvosaurus was actually the first tyrannosaur

[coral forge]

no...
Even if Torvosaurus was a tyrannosauroid, there are still tyrannosauroids older than it so it wouldn't even be the oldest

[paper parcel]

There's no way there were tyrannosaurs in the jurassic, or is there?

[queen oar]

The Evil Proceratosaurus:

[undone rapids]

There's Tyrannosauroids like Stokesosaurus

[undone rapids]

That's a ceratosaur silly, a professional one at that

[paper parcel]

Microtyrannus

[queen oar]

Hey Glaive, what do you think of my Megalosaurus?

[undone rapids]

The skull seems a bit allosaur-like, maybe metriacanthos are what I'm thinking of. Its Nice

[queen oar]

True.

[paper parcel]

Metri If it was good

[undone rapids]

The best one will always be

[paper parcel]

Underrated sauropod hunters, people would rather keep glazing tarbosaurus or giganotosaurus

[undone rapids]

There were a few

[glossy lagoon]

As accurate as Z-Boomer reconstructions

[warm saddle]

Yang imo is the best lookin metriacanthosaurid

[paper parcel]

I would rather have yang be the apex bleeder dino then tyrannotitan lmfao

[outer tusk]

Giga

[warm saddle]

Hmmm intresting take.

[paper parcel]

Pot if it was good, replaced eotrike with the woolly rhino, replaced iggy with chalicotherium, replaced conc with dimetrodon, replaced ano with cotylorhynchus, replaced Alberta and styra with the modern elephant and titanohyrax, replaced trex with torvosaurus, replaced titan with yang, and replaced tylo with basilosaurus(thal is replaced by argentavis)

[charred hearth]

what formation do you guys find more interesting

morrison

or

shaximiao

[undone rapids]

The one with leshansaurus

[queen oar]

That we gonna have to wait and see, since I made a poll in my friend group for either: Utahraptor, Camarasaurus or Giganotosaurus

If Giga doesn't win, I forfeit and you automatically win.

[paper parcel]

Camarasaurus always win

[queen oar]

It's a tie between Camara and Utah currently...

[outer tusk]

I love Leshansaurus as its a solid megalosaur/afrovenatorinae base for relatives like Duiravenator, Pievatusaurus and some obvious close related indets

[paper parcel]

In a fist fight

[undone rapids]

Magno is also quite a funny looking megalo

[paper parcel]

I still find it crazy camara is one of the few sauropods with a actual bite force, which is also what allowed it to eat tougher plants and live in more places. It's literally one of the most commonly found sauropod fossils in the morrison. Also meathooks on its front legs

[outer tusk]

it bite force is like 400kg

[steep atlas]

It'd be a 4 slot

[spice latch]

always bet on cama fr

[runic heart]

Surviving Earth trailer drops this week.

[icy lagoon]

there's a yang sub tho?

[fossil ingot]

Given how its smaller than Tarbo and how Tarbo looks next to other 4 slots without an Upsize
It would be roughly 3 slots

[vapid urchin]

Does Pachycephalosaurus have Subspecies? Or is there only one Species of Pachycephalosaurus?

[little mauve]

There is only one definitive species of Pachycephalosaurus: P. wyomingensis. We can't discern subspecies from the fossil record

[vapid urchin]

So Draco Rex & other Pachy are invalid Species?

[little mauve]

Genera, not species

[vapid urchin]

Idk XD
-# explain XD, I call everything species

[small geyser]

As a dinosaur example, Tyrannosaurus is the genus name and Rex is the species name.

[vapid urchin]

Oh I know what Genus & species is, I just don't know what Genera is lmao

[little mauve]

Genera is the plural of genus

[grave coral]

When?

[vapid urchin]

ª, Okay xd, never knew XD

[runic heart]

Idk, sometime this week.

[warm saddle]

Ok question What is the closest relative/cousin of acrocanthosautus (ie like how giga nad carchar are both carcharodontosaurids but giga is closer with mapu then it is with carchar)

[vapid urchin]

So what you're trying to say is that the real Genus is Pachycephalosaurus & that Draco Rex & other "Pachys" are Invalid Genus? @little mauve
-# I'm trying to understand if there's only one Pachycephalosaurus (Genus) & one Species or if there's more than one

[little mauve]

Dracorex is currently considered invalid, Stygimoloch spinifer is considered by some to be a species of Pachycephalosaurus but there isn't a consensus

[cloud dagger]

https://youtu.be/ePDxS3IMGHY?is=BE4MCUsMCmpJL_Qg 🐛

[warm saddle]

Stygi we don't know it might still be valid genus or a diffrent pachy species

[vapid urchin]

& what's a Consensus?

[tough parcel]

Stygimoloch is the juvenile T. rex

[warm saddle]

Currentky dracorex is invalid iirc...stygi is kinda up in teh air

[little mauve]

We don't know, NA carcharodontosaurids need a reevaluation probably, but it's outside carcharodontosaurinae

[tough parcel]

Currently is the key word here

With Napoli's two papers regarding ontogeny in the fossil record, it'll likely see a shift...when someone cares enough to look at it

[warm saddle]

Ok,,,.so we don't know essentially?

[little mauve]

Generally agreed upon and well supported hypothesis

[warm saddle]

Ok....kinda bummed out,,hmm

[vapid urchin]

Okay, so there's a higher chance that a new Pachy Genus/Species exists?

[little mauve]

It's somewhere between stuff like Concavenator/Neovenator and Carcharodontosaurus, that's all we can say now

[little mauve]

Don't know what you mean

[vapid urchin]

I suck at explaining XD, But what I'm trying to say is, There's a chance that Pachycephalosaurus Hogwartsia isn't the only dome-headed dinosaur Genus/Species?

[little mauve]

Dracorex hogwartsia is invalid, both genus and species, and is considered an immature Pachycephalosaurus. The second part of your question I still don't understand, are you asking if there could be more than one species of Pachycephalosaurus?

[vapid urchin]

Yea XD, that's what I'm asking XD

[little mauve]

There is only one currently recognized.

P. spinifer might be an additional one but it is debated.

In reality there probably were more than one species as that's pretty normal for tetrapod genera but reconstructing that exactly from fossils is difficult if not impossible

We have a lot more to go on with modern animals wrt defining genus and species, including genetics and direct behavioral observation, that we don't have with fossils

[vapid urchin]

Mmm, understood, thank you for explaining!!

[little mauve]

No problem 👍

[warm saddle]

Ok...so eseentially it's own tging more or less? Atleast with out current understnading/available thing

[little mauve]

Essentially yeah, there's probably a decent amount of diversity we're missing among middle grade carcharodontosaurs like acrocanthosaurus, so its closest relatives are still yet to be discovered (or described from existing material)

[warm saddle]

K k

[little mauve]

Acrocanthosaurus itself might be more than one species, there isn't enough material yet to distinguish the western ones from the eastern ones

[warm saddle]

WAT

[little mauve]

The genus ranged across North America but whether it contained more than one species cannot be determined yet https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195667123003427

[warm saddle]

Tahts uh facinating

[little mauve]

It's sort of similar to Tyrannosaurus, one genus of super-large predator in North America but potentially more than one species across its range. We don't know how far east Tyrannosaurus made it, given debates about the extent of the WIS at the K/Pg, but Acrocanthosaurus is known from Oklahoma to Maryland

[paper parcel]

it speaks volume the sauropods were still bigger then hatz in its own ecosystem(despite being a island)

Also wonder what would happen if a sauropod species survived to the cenozoic like avian dinosaurs

[mental cloak]

Can anyone tell me who's the first skull from
I the middle one is stego and the last one is a sauropodomorph..but i cant recongnize the first one

[queen oar]

Erlikosaurus

[mental cloak]

Oh thx!

[charred hearth]

repost

[balmy oyster]

For what?

[charred hearth]

because i was proud of it 🙁

[balmy oyster]

fair

I like the cyan background

[charred hearth]

ty, it overlapped with pliosaurs and mosasaurids right?

i wonder how mosasaurus fans feel after seeing it become the punching bag for nanai

[queen oar]

@balmy oyster hey

[balmy oyster]

@queen oar hi

[paper parcel]

Live camarasaurus reaction(could probably survive the cenozoic)

[queen oar]

@balmy oyster what dinosaur has good fossil material but doesn't have a proper skeletal? ( out of curiosity )

[tacit pine]

???

How would they become a “punching bag”? Even great whites irl can hunt and fight giant or colossal squids buddy. Is there even proof this thing could hunt mosasaurs aside from scavenge or kill small ones?

[queen oar]

tbh, it was a " Punching bag " momentarily. But as a counter-argument: Mosasaurs are Punching bags to each other ( fossils of Mosasaurs with the bone of their snouts literally ripped out )

[tacit pine]

Well yeah the cannibalism i can totally understand but idk what u mean by momentarily

[queen oar]

momentarily, as in the sense that: The hype around the stupid octopus only lived very shortly.

[tacit pine]

Oh yeah well thats good lol

[queen oar]

See, when it was " 19 meters long for no reason ", everybody was like " Yeah, beat that Mosasaur! F#ck them up! ", now that it's 12 meters long or something they just went quiet.

[tacit pine]

Ah lmao

[sudden wind]

Acro's closest relatives are within the entire nod that contains (Tameryraptor + Carcharodontosaurinae)

[ashen wedge]

Maybe not, but then again, who knows

[outer tusk]

Camarasaurus is not surviving the majority of the cenozoic lowkey

[coral forge]

Camarasaurus when it sees Megistotherium

[ashen wedge]

Question: Are there any dinosaurs that have been found in the State of Connecticut?

[coral forge]

Anchisaurus, Footprints, and some indeterminate dinosaurs

[ashen wedge]

Thank you

[paper parcel]

Epic

[runic rover]

Life is pain, just as it is being a Deinosuchus fan, a Barosaurus fan, a Giga fan and a Livyatan fan.

And I am all of that.

[crisp matrix]

To be fair, "punching bag" is probably an overstatement. Even if it is big/intelligent enough to take down a mosasaur, it wouldn't be an easy fight. The octopus is soft-bodied, and mosasaur teeth are perfect for that.

[astral valve]

Is allosaurus fragilis normally 10-12m even though the largest specimen that is found is about 9.7m can someone confirm

[exotic flare]

Wild allosaurus debate in the main chat rn

[exotic flare]

Fragilis was like 7, saurophagnax was like 10-14 unless this is outdated information

[astral valve]

That dude said it’s normally at 10-12m.

[exotic flare]

There's also debate if saurophagnax is even an allosaurus. Paleontology man. And I know, I've been observing with mild interest

[coral forge]

9.7m is only the putative largest fragilis. AMNH 5767, originally called Epanterias, is 11.8 meters and could belong to fragilis

[astral valve]

Amnh 680 is the largest confirmed am I correct?

[exotic flare]

There's the wizard we needed

His original argument I believe was in protest of getting dunked on by a stego in game. But we have fossil evidence of a stego ganking an allosaurus

[astral valve]

From what Im reading it’s classified as dubious though

[coral forge]

Epanterias is, because it is now Allosaurus, likely A. fragilis

[opaque kayak]

😭

[spare adder]

Any game or other resource suggestions for learning more about dinosaurs? Right now I just watch a bunch of YouTube video essays. Looking mostly for games, they help me learn best :))

[astral valve]

Does that mean allosaurus itself could’ve been way larger than it is now?

[coral forge]

Google scholar and talking to people who know more than you

[spare adder]

Alright im in the right place then in term sof talking to people who know more than me
Expect me to lurk this channel often lol

[astral valve]

Anax is a valid specimen that is found in the Morrison formation right? If fragilis could’ve been way larger what makes anax different from fragilis.

[coral forge]

It has a smooth postorbital with no lateral fossa, the dorsal vertebrae are hourglass shaped and have air filled holes, and 3 shallow grooves on the inside of the fibula

[true juniper]

What if spinosaurus also had small arms (we don't have spinosaurine arm fossils right???)

[undone rapids]

Size doesn't seperate species, small features in the bone do like lambeo there mentioned

There's also allos like these which we dunno species of. But can see they're pretty big

[coral forge]

all of its relatives have big arms so it makes no sense to assume spinosaurus also didn't

[true juniper]

Yeah it wouldnt surprise me
Also why does the Spino mirabilis skeletal have such Weirdly long arms, almost as long as the legs

[undone rapids]

That might be based on another spinosaur they found from brazil, but we'll have to see when it gets published

[fossil ingot]

I mean
Kinda Big Arms
Spino's Best Case of Arm Size is Probably the Brazilian Spinosaur which is what Mirabilis uses
Other have relative big arms but not to the same extent as the Brazilian one or maybe even Sucho

[queen oar]

@outer tusk Utahraptor won, so I can't draw Giganotosaurus, I forfeit. You Win.

[fossil ingot]

Probably cause they use the Brazilian Spinosaur Arm Material as a Base
This Guy isn't fully described or out yet, but a Picture of its Material was somewhat leaked and we know it has Arm Stuff and even other like its Tibia
And its Tibia was Figured in the Supplementary Material of Mirabilis

Mirabilid Paper Skeletal Posture is Pretty much the same as the Brazilian one Skeletal aswell

[stable sun]

Saurophaganax is a nomen dubium. Call it Allosaurus anax.

[rare bough]

allosaurus anax sounds trash

[stable sun]

yes but irrelevant

[rare bough]

Saurophaganax its his name and was it first name deal with it

[stable sun]

the holotype is a possible sauropod with no diagnostic characters

[rare bough]

it dont matter most dinos have names from first thought like the thal means waterwalker but he dont actually waterwalk

[stable sun]

what are you even talking about

[rare bough]

sorry to break youre world but welcome

[stable sun]

no you're just confusing none of these words even make sense

saurophaganax is invalid and that's the end

[icy lagoon]

https://www.instagram.com/p/DXuJXS6DeVN/?img_index=5&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
finally a nice sarco toy

[rare bough]

discussion is over no argument from youre site bye fury

[runic heart]

Let’s see what PNSO does next. Hoping for a diplodocoid, like supersaurus, or an articulated Carcharodontosaurid.

[stable sun]

What the hell does the waterwalker even have to do with saurophaganax

[coral forge]

Different Lizard Lord/Lord of the Different Lizards is a goated name

[polar rain]

Can you do this to dinosaur lips? Like ik they're immobile and robust but they're not stiff right

[wintry sluice]

Is that a cookiecutter shark?

[polar rain]

Kitefin shark

[wintry sluice]

I mean some dinosaur lips might have been something like that, we really dont know the exact style of lips they had

[polar rain]

They're the same as reptile lips tho

[steep atlas]

Probably just similar to lizards

[wintry sluice]

We dont know that for sure but if they were then theres your answer

[steep atlas]

Crocs are a poor comparison because they have highly specialized facial tissue

[wintry sluice]

I wouldnt be surprised if dinosaur lips also varied somewhat depending on species ecology

[steep atlas]

Well we know some ornithischians likely had something resembling cheeks

[polar rain]

Heterodontosaurus very likely had pouches like squirrels

Stegosaurs were confirmed to not have them

We're uncertain about ceratopsians

[wintry sluice]

Beaks and similar structures are also a super interesting topic since afaik they were more widespread that previously assumed? Didnt Archaeopteryx have a short beak and werent some sauropods also proposed to have a beak-like structure?

[queen oar]

I am personally not convinced of Ornithischian Cheeks.

[steep atlas]

Seems likely with ceratopsians given how their jaw muscles attached

[polar rain]

My triceratops has really reduced cheeks 🤭

[steep atlas]

Also ankylosaurs appear to have had them, with the giant cheek plate and all

[queen oar]

I hate Sauropod pseudobeak hypothesis. My only arch-nemesis.

[polar rain]

Yeah I think it got debunked actually

[paper parcel]

What could hunt sauropods during the Jurassic?

[steep atlas]

I imagine skin would overlap the jaw muscles, not a "cheek" reaching up to the rhamphotheca like jurassic park designs

[polar rain]

Allosaurus hunted all kinds of sauropods

[steep atlas]

Theropods

[queen oar]

It did? Haven't seen anything.

[paper parcel]

But how?

[wintry sluice]

Honestly im not convinced that Allosaurus would actually hunt adults of the larger Morrison sauropods

[steep atlas]

Here's what i mean about ceratopsians. Muscle attached far forward, would probably function like a cheek for chewing

[undone rapids]

That big guy grew to that after 20 years of being small. Most of its siblings died

[paper parcel]

Sea turtle moment

[steep atlas]

Hunting the young, sick, etc. Tearing at hindquarters and belly

[stiff osprey]

Also 90% of sauropod species are not that big

[undone rapids]

Food

[queen oar]

I mean, any desperate carnivore can hunt any large animal, now, whether or not they succeed is a different question.

[polar rain]

Allosaurus likely hunted most stuff bigger than them, tried to atleast

[steep atlas]

Predators will bite off more than they can chew oftentimes. Sometimes they even pull it off against the odds

[undone rapids]

Finding many injuries on the theropod with the largest sample size from the morrison, does not mean they were hunting bigger things than themselves 24/7. That twitter thread has really made teh image of allosaurus a bit stupid

[paper parcel]

Imagine a torvosaurus being hit by a diplodocus tail lmfao

[polar rain]

I heard that it probably didn't use them as whips

[queen oar]

too fast.

[polar rain]

Their tails would break

[stiff osprey]

they couldn't use them as whips in the sense that they wouldn't break the sound barrier like a whip does, but they can very much slap things with the tail

[paper parcel]

Hottake but they might have had spikes that replaced overtime similar but not the same as feathers on their spines and tails

[wintry sluice]

Better a sprained tail tip than getting eaten, i think sauropods would use their tails as weapons when needed

[polar rain]

Lowkey was wondering that

[paper parcel]

Lizards and other reptiles have them, it wouldn't surprise me if they had ones that acted as spikes and were able to regrow them back.

[tulip dove]

People kind of just ran with the idea that because they couldn't break the sound barrier, they couldn't use their tails as a weapon at all

Still wouldn't wanna get slapped by something as big as Diplo

[paper parcel]

but imagine if they had spikes lol, it would fix the problem of not needing to use as much force and plus you can just kill predators via severe bleeding, the spikes wouldn't even need to be that big.

[wintry sluice]

Not to mention something as big as Apatosaurus or Diplodocus could just kinda move in the direction of a threat with some vigor and be dangerous that way

[undone rapids]

There's also sauropods with weapons on their tails, sure probably wasn't primarily for theropod defence, but when you have a hammer, everything else can be a nail

[queen oar]

Tbh, given how much light that segment of the tail is, and given how heavy the base of the tail is, they probably can reach that speed.

[stiff osprey]

it was more the other way around - if your tail moves at the speed of sound, and hits anything solid (like a theropod skull), the very very thin bones of the tail tip are going to explode

if the tail moves at a more reasonable speed, then it will hurt the wielder a lot less

[paper parcel]

Torvosaurus when it gets cut by the tiny spikes on their tail that act as a saw.

[tulip dove]

It's a cool speculative feature I like seeing on diplodocids

[queen oar]

Not necessarily. It might be more subjective in general, really. We are also assuming that having a heavy tail base does not help with impact absorption, which in most likelyhood, it did assist on that matter. Given how Sauropods with shorter tails seem to reduce the musculature at the base, hinting that they do not use their tail frequently.

[paper parcel]

It honestly seems like the best bet, I don't see other sauropods with smaller tails having them

[undone rapids]

Shunosaurus Tail Club

[stiff osprey]

there's also titanosaurs with osteoderms on their tails, which while primarily not for defense either, probably also increased how much a tail slap would hurt

[queen oar]

It's also a bit strange to suggest that Sauropods tails would be too fragile for the kinda of impact they would emmit, when a lot of Dinosaurs that we think use their tails as a defense mechanism, lack things like fused caudal vertebras ( such as those in Ankylosaurids ), hinting that the way they may handle impact is mainly by utilizing tissues from their tail itself.

[paper parcel]

Also other dinos had quills, I wonder if some sauropods like smaller ones had bushy tails covered in quills they used as a weapon, or something similar

[wintry sluice]

I really wanna see a small insular sauropod with speculative Haolong-esque spines now lol

[outer tusk]

So tiny filaments on its body

[stiff osprey]

it probably happened at some point, something like a dicraeosaur or rebbachisaur that is too small to just use size as a defense

[queen oar]

Nah.

[wintry sluice]

Brachytrachelopan build but with spikes lmao

[stiff osprey]

there is also the spines which are known to exist yeah, although so far only from one species of diplodocid, they're soft tissue so not going to be preserving often

[steep atlas]

I'm glad it's extinct

[hazy basalt]

How did relatively small sauropods even defend themselves? Do we underestimate their speed because from what I’m led to believe is that they are small and slow and outside of being in massive herds I don’t understand how something like Nigersaurus can exist along side Suchomimus and Eocarchia.

[stiff osprey]

Being in massive herds is a good strategy, but it's not the only one. They could also have excellent camouflage and survive by crypsis, or they could be covered in spines that made them painful to attack, or just... tasted bad

Smaller sauropods could be decently fast, but they would still be slower than giant theropods, so their best bet if they don't have any of the aforementioned defenses would be to spot the theropod from far away and get a headstart

[undone rapids]

Successful Sauropods only need to be faster than the slowest herd member

[queen oar]

Realistically, the best option would be to imagine that they just have enough speed to outrun their respective carnivores. Not just cause there's a lack of confirmation for the other things, but because small sauropods in general lack very exaggerated features that would be indicative of pressures of predators that they cannot really avoid in any way. Which, we kinda of do not see in general. Small Sauropods and Large Sauropods, of their own respective clades, don't vary much beyond the aspect of either being big or small.

[scenic flame]

though ig that depends on if they can keep their numbers up with the attrition rates, which is totally possible tmk

[hallow spear]

Saltasaurus is small and slow wonder if its armour was enough or whether large herds is what kept them alive

[paper parcel]

Porcupine sauropods would go hard

[queen oar]

of course, they do vary in the aspect of different ecology.

[zealous ravine]

Sauropods are not fast animals, they’re pretty much always gonna be outpaced by theropods. It’s mostly just a consequence of how big they are and their derived anatomy

[queen oar]

See, I thought the same thing, but realistically, if THAT was the case, you would expect to for instance see Sauropod analogues to things like Sloth Bears, where there's no option to avoid their respective predator, so being offensive-defensive is the only option, that doesn't happen. Now, we could say " Preservation Bias ", but really, if " 90% of most sauropods are small ", then you would expect that to be the case eventually...

It isn't.

[stiff osprey]

there have been suggestions of small sauropods like dicraeosaurids being more athletic than the big ones, but either way, anyone who has looked at their anatomy once can tell you they'll be slower than a large theropod. or, if they could reach the same speed, would tire a lot faster

[little mauve]

Sauropods are not outrunning their predators apart from instances where they spot it at a long distance and have a massive head start. @undone rapids is right that with herd animals, you only need to be faster than the slowest member of the herd

[queen oar]

I'm just saying, it does not make sense, or else you would expect to see trends that do happen in the extant record to also occur in small sauropods. They do not. I've tried looking at it... It does not.

[little mauve]

What trends?

[paper parcel]

Sauropods are built for stability not speed, quills or herds would help smaller sauropods survive without being impossible to evolve

[balmy oyster]

Alternatively it could just be something more unique to them and that’s why there is no good analogous animal to compare with them nowadays.

If you have the same lifestyle of a sea turtle but without a protective shell then you’re going to specify in having a loooooot of children

[undone rapids]

What features of a sloth bear's skeleton show us it is more offensive-defensive than other bears.

[queen oar]

Most Herbivores who belong to ecosystems who they cannot avoid predation from their respective predator, the trend is for those animals to be more aggressive. Since, " Avoiding the problem " is no longer a option, pressures tend to select for behaviour that " Dealing with the problem " is more effective, not necessarily because it objectively is, injury is still a real risk, and carnivores can still hunt risky prey items. Unless it's a invasive species in a isolated ecosystem, where most things can't really naturally react to it's introduction

Small Sauropods lack any real different traits from their respective large counterparts, depending on the clade of Titanosaurs, any small titanosaur from that clade is going to share similar anatomy, as well defensive options like per say: " Their claws and tails " are not differing that much. Now, Titanosaurs are too fragmentary, and a lot of taxa is subjected to change depending on what we find on them specifically, but for other cases, like general Macronarians, Eusauropods and Diplodocoides, they are understood with more consistency, Dicraeosaurs and Diplodocids may vary in body proportions, but things like their tails and claws are not varying much, neither anything else in any other Sauropods

Realistically, you cannot suggest that Small Sauropods are just defenseless, since expectation would be for them to respond to such pressures and address them effectively... Even in the model of Herds, realistically, if we are to expect the kinda of pressure where " Slower individuals get caught first, and faster individuals survive the encounter ", then the expectation would be for those sauropods to develop to be " Faster ", following hypotheticals of how we would imagine such convergency to look like ( insert cursed image of a Light-built Sauropod ), however, given how they aren't, and they aren't also developing to be more offensive on their defense... It's likely that there is nothing to change in the first place.

[little mauve]

So the first point is impossible to determine from the fossil record, maybe small sauropods were highly aggressive. We have no way of knowing. As for your second point, evidently a conservative bodyplan among sauropods was sufficient to avoiding being preyed upon, don't really see what else there is to say there. Thirdly, no one is suggesting small sauropods were defenseless. We've listed multiple avenues of defense they could have used including crypsis, herding, aggression, defensive spines, tasting poorly. There are a lot of different options besides being faster than their predators, which they are manifestly not

[queen oar]

If they were more aggressive, and we per say imagine that they would be more defensive with their teeth, claws and tails, you would expect those things to change... They don't. You can try to look at it yourself, they don't.

[little mauve]

that's a really poor heuristic both given our samples of sauropod fossils and generally how evolution works

[rare bough]

what is youre profession?

[little mauve]

the straightforward question is are sauropods more cursorial than theropods? They're not.

[undone rapids]

They may have responded to such preassures not by being faster in locomotion, but faster in Growth, Perhaps to a point where they weren't "Defenseless" for most of the Carnivores of the Ecosystem. Just like large sauropods, very large theropods were most likely quite rare.

[coral forge]

You're forgetting the most common option. Outbreeding your mortality rate. It doesn't matter if you die if you have 100 babies, because statistically at least one of them will be able to replace you

[queen oar]

As a general reminder, Dicraeosaurs and Rebbachisaurs likely appear as early as the Jurassic, likely. With Diplocoides of similar sizes also appearing on that period, they have pretty consistent anatomy on those three aspects I mentioned. So, you are suggesting that we don't have enough samples? Give me a break

And yes, I understand that evolution doesn't work like that, Evolution is very variable. But, I'm just saying that if that was the case, you would expect to see it eventually... We don't.

[little mauve]

Your original point is that sauropods were faster than their predators and mainly used flight as a defense correct?

[queen oar]

I'm feeling this will be followed by a gotcha, but yeah.

[little mauve]

Can you show any evidence to support that

[queen oar]

What did I say? lol

[light osprey]

We can only ‘get ya’ cause you’re yapping about very little. Trying to follow this line of discussion, there is no evidentiary basis for this kind of behavioural interrogation

[little mauve]

Thats not a gotcha

[paper parcel]

Imagine dying and being reincarnated as this

[queen oar]

See, you are not going to say it is. But it really is. Because, given how I pointed that there is no evidence that we could correlate to small sauropods being more offensive with their defense response. Now, you said: " Where's your evidence that small sauropods are faster? "

And because it already is hard to convince someone of that idea, automatically, I just loose

At the end of the day, I think for anyone, their conclusion on this topic is subjective, it doesn't matter what I say. I just personally have tried to explore the other alternatives... They do not make sense for me.

[little mauve]

I was re-orienting the conversation back to the original point, asked you to clarify your hypothesis and then for evidence supporting that. You have a tendency to go all over the place, no offense, I think it's partly stream of consciousness which is fine but as a debate strategy it behooves me to redirect back to the main point

[undone rapids]

I'm lost tbh

[craggy trench]

Average day in paleo chat lol

[little mauve]

Agnes hypothesized that sauropods were faster than their predators as their main source of defense. I disagreed and asked for evidence. Here we are

[coral forge]

Arkharavia could run 50km/h confirmed

[undone rapids]

Atlasaurus could do it, Trust

[queen oar]

Mainly I was just trying to explain how other alternatives do not make sense. For instance, most small sauropods are still going to go by what most people think it's a " Medium-sized " dinosaur, so camouflage is not really as optional as we might think, generally for the fact that we really lack large portion of examples of animals that mainly rely on that ( for context, I'm just referring to animals of similar size, or comparative sizes in the context of compared to other members of that ecosystem ), we can imagine that small sauropods may just be aggressive, but then it's another issue when you can't find examples of such behaviour being more justified ( again, not saying that's how evolution works, but you would expect a Sauropod to at least change their features related to their defenses ), a herd style of protection comes with the doubt of why smaller sauropods wouldn't develop to become " Lighter and Faster ", like other comparative examples of small herbivores, Elephants cannot really be used as an example to the context of small sauropods, since the main difference is how large both herbivores are to their contemporary carnivores

Although, other alternatives have been suggested in this chat, such as small sauropods growing faster or just generally being able to replace any members lost. I have my personnal doubts on both ideas

I tend to prefer the option of Sauropod bodies can be fast by default, because really, that's just the most common ( note: Most, not " all ", nor " universally " ) example of defense mechanism in herbivores.

[little mauve]

Okay so where's the evidence of that. It's a pretty significant claim considering the consensus on sauropod speed

[undone rapids]

Our idea of Herbivore Defense is very much modelled off of Extant mammilian ecosystems, which are quite different from Mesozoic ones. So I don't feel the option that disagrees with physics is more likely

[craggy trench]

I don’t think convo is going anywhere

[sterile trail]

New titanosaur dropped

It's called Phosphatotitan khouribgaensis

[coral forge]

What if, hear me out, they literally just relied on herds and "better him than me"

[queen oar]

There isn't. Realistically, there's no way to find evidence that would prove such scenario, beyond very selective interpretation. Although, my personnal belief is that it is very subjective where small sauropods may come from. Realistically, my personnal idea of size in Sauropods it's that larger sizes and necks is a huge selector in larger species of sauropods, Small sauropods may come from already small sauropods... Or just Sauropods that may have already been big once. Although, this is largely hypothetical, it seems that there is no consequences or hesitance for Sauropods to be big or small, a small sauropod cannot be " Big " without the potential risk of being a more likely target for predation, and a Big sauropod cannot get " Smaller " without the risk of being more vulnerable. Yet, we do observe that this happens very frequently, especially with Macronarians. This kinda of suggest that Sauropods by default may just have already have effective ways to deal with predation, without any particular risks associated to becoming big or small

[light osprey]

They call it this because it is made of salt, much like the Saltasaurus

[thorn grove]

One thing we see with some modern herding animals is that predators will often weed out the weaker and generally slower members because they are an easy target. Considering this the Sauropods wouldn't have to be faster than Theropods, just fast enough that they would rather find a slower herd member to reduce the energy demands of the hunt.

[little mauve]

No way to find such evidence? Footprints, gross morphology, biomechanics. There's a century's worth of literature and evidence to support slow maximum speeds in sauropods.

[queen oar]

Footprints, we are expecting for them to tell a full story, when very likely they may not.

[little mauve]

No, now you're making the claim that such evidence cannot exist. That is absurd.

[balmy oyster]

Sauropods are as fast as an ostrich because I said so.

[queen oar]

Yes, I know that it goes against " Century's worth of literature and evidence to support slow maximum speeds ", however I just don't think it really makes sense, given how we see there is no hesitance for them to get either big or small.

[undone rapids]

Ofcourse they by default had a method to deal with with predation, but why speed of all things.

[little mauve]

Your intuition and reasoning without evidentiary support does not trump science

[thorn grove]

Unfortunately even putting footprints aside, biomechanics don't support a fast speed for Sauropods at all. They have short tibiae, metatarsals, etc. They have very femur dominated hind limbs which can be good for strong leverage but this heavily reduces stride length and consequently speed

[queen oar]

I kinda explained why other methods may not entirely make sense, or we can't really find correlation of it happening, although I know that my idea can also be unreliable, I just find preferrable to stick what we see most commonly: Most herbivores avoid carnivores, by just outrunning them.

[undone rapids]

They Outrun them, that does not mean they are faster. They spot the ambush first and it fails/they get a headstart.

[queen oar]

True.

[queen oar]

even the small Diplocoides from the Morrison Formation? With Allosaurus? Ceratosaurus? Torvosaurus? I know there's other theropods, but most people don't expect them to go after sauropods anyways.

[scenic flame]

if camouflage isn't option above a certain size then why does borealopelta have counter shading? why do basically all whales and large sharks have counter shading?

[undone rapids]

What is "Small" in this case. Marshosaurus is absolutely going after a dog sized sauropod which also has a easier time hiding. At the similar size, a sauropod is not outrunning any theropod, esp onces that can get airtime and actually run

[queen oar]

I do need to explain how the Ocean is a much larger environment and therefore making such traits more effective, or...?

And Borealopelta, I kinda don't really care, really. I kinda haven't found the paper that talks about the coloration, maybe becase I'm stupid... Maybe...

[compact leaf]

so because you can’t find a paper that makes it a moot point?

[scenic flame]

that's not a good point when to an individual animal there's no meaningful difference with the scale continents are already on. Never mind the fact that there's no difference when it comes to shallow/inland sea animals in that regard

[paper parcel]

Pot official roster if it was good:

[scenic flame]

also very important reminder that most sauropods of a given population of all species are not adults, we already have a good idea of how sauropod primarily deal with predation, which is to go full send on R selection, going full sea turtle

[undone rapids]

No Abelisaur, 0/10

[queen oar]

not really, I kinda don't really care about most coloration papers, because they often do not account for how decomposition may affect the preservation, nor account for other variables. But, cause I haven't found the paper, I don't know what kinda of methods they used and how much they address it.

[thorn grove]

tbf I agree that Borealopelta isn't really a good analogy for like a 5 ton sauropod, their overall morphology seems more comparable to Hadrosaurs being relatively tall as compared with the stout build of an Ankylosaur. That's not to say camoflage is impossible but it seems less probable/effective given the other aspects of their morphology

[balmy oyster]

there are no abelisaurs in North America

[paper parcel]

It mostly just sauropods though and some other dinos lmao, since pot players hate sauropods so much

[undone rapids]

There's an Elaphrosaur there maybe, which is Abelisauroid.

[scenic flame]

That doesn't invalidate them, the main problem is just the exact colour, however we can still see the clear difference in lightness vs darkness

[queen oar]

Not saying it's invalid. I just wouldn't take it at face-value. Most coloration papers do not really try to explore other things, such as how such coloration would've been acquired ( such as the animal's diet, not accounting for genetics, because... We can only dream of getting that someday ), or general function for the animal in question.

[scenic flame]

I don't really see how they produce said pigment relevant to the current argument, counter shading is flat out a form of camouflage to break up the animal's outline

[undone rapids]

Haven't read it, but that's alot

[queen oar]

it is relevant, to build a more complete picture of that animal's life, and to perhaps understand ecological function. If we can't do that, I won't say it's invalid, but I would feel skeptical about the conclusions from the author. Not that it matters to the topic of small sauropods, we are diverging too far away from it...

[scenic flame]

that just still doesn't matter to the specific point at hand though

[queen oar]

Whatever you say, boss

[zealous ravine]

They're sauropods. Nothing about them makes sense lmao

[scenic flame]

there is only one purpose for counter shading

[queen oar]

True.

[zealous ravine]

We also tend to more often see small sauropods in environments that lack particularly large predators (though this isn't a hard rule)

[little mauve]

Their time spent feeding daily must have been truly ridiculous

[zealous ravine]

Bajo de la Carpa is the best example I can think of, all the sauropods are relatively small, as are all the predators. And again "small" by sauropod standards is still big compared to basically anything else. Not to mention they likely traveled in large numbers.

[tough parcel]

They were only large because I allowed it.

[little mauve]

Who asked you, God?

[scenic flame]

go back to your twin

[paper parcel]

Mokele mbembe is a still living semiaquatic sauropod species in the Amazon River

[undone rapids]

Everything in Bajo is kinda small tbh

[queen oar]

Partially, yes. But then if we rely to such explanations, we avoid having to address more complex dynamics in ecosystems such as those from the Tendaguru Formaton ( for example, I do understand it does not have the best amount of samples ), not disagreeing with you. But I think we should perhaps try to understand, what even allows small sauropods to develop in ecosystems already established with large or medium carnivores.

[zealous ravine]

Exactly. meanwhile take something like Huincul where you have giant carcharodontosaurs, and the smallest sauropods are still a similar size to the Carchs in terms of dimensions, and almost certainly heavier.

[zealous ravine]

Morrison would probably be a better example but this is true. However in those environments we have evidence of smaller sauropods and juveniles of larger sauropods congregating in very big herds. Numbers are a very good defensive mechanism on their own

[zealous ravine]

Oh yeah forgot about some of the smaller Rebbachisaurs, still very big overall tho

[tough parcel]

I hope you realize the Amazon is in South America, not Africa! Very basic geography that makes me question whether you know anything beyond Mokele Mbembe's name and fake sauropod sightings!

[thorn grove]

Africa is a country in South America

[zealous ravine]

And of course most sauropods do have some sort of anatomical defensive adaptation

[paper parcel]

Mokele mbembe is usually highly territorial and aggressive hiding in water as a defense, and are known to eat fish when needed, but they usually feast on aquatic plants

[runic heart]

What material do we actually have for “Titanovenator”

[queen oar]

Anyways, this conversation bored me. I'm gonna draw a featherless Utahraptor just out of spite and then post it to ruin all of the minds in this chat.

[thorn grove]

I'm gonna draw a featherless Agnes Tachyon

[paper parcel]

Kasai rex is in the Congo River and mokele is in the Amazon river

[queen oar]

Foolish to think I would be scared of something that I have already done.

[paper parcel]

Kasai rex has signs its actually not a tyrannosaur, it's encounters have describe it doing hit and runs like a shark or more accurately, a carcharadontosaurid

[tough parcel]

Are you joking or are you that gullible?

[ionic linden]

IS THAT AUSTRO??!!

[paper parcel]

They are real trust

[little mauve]

Behold the mighty Carcharodontosaurus

[undone rapids]

Bajo de la carpa

[paper parcel]

Nah this is the real image trust(that's just megalania lol)

[little mauve]

Carch is like wtf am I doing here rn

[paper parcel]

Carch seeing the funny sweet tasting shrews have grown to be its size:

[tough parcel]

Oh so you're just gonna contribute nothing to the conversation?

[paper parcel]

Nah I am, it's totally a carcharodontosaurus, tyrannosaurs rely on ambush and carches rely on hit and runs and bleeding out their prey so it's definitely not a rex

[tough parcel]

Maybe rethink your priorities

[queen oar]

Buitreraptor

[ionic linden]

-# oh

[charred hearth]

How do you suffer as a livy fan

[queen oar]

O. megalodon size difference moment

[steep atlas]

@dapper spoke

[charred hearth]

Punching bag in the sense that every art piece of nanai is just it killing mosa

[paper parcel]

It's fragmentary

[undone rapids]

Its Decent

[steep atlas]

That's a good one thanks

[tough parcel]

Tyrannotitan chubby

[steep atlas]

Buddy was saying tyrannotitan was longer and taller than tyrannosaurus

[paper parcel]

Who knows how big trex gets irl

[steep atlas]

We just gotta go off what we have

[craggy trench]

🍔

[paper parcel]

I swear there's not a single day where they don't find a bigger trex specimen

[undone rapids]

Its longer than ones like 5027 iirc, but yeah there's quite a few bigger ones

[paper parcel]

I'm pretty sure a argentinosaurus became so big it created its own gravity and ascended to become the moon

[queen oar]

@zealous ravine oh yeah, what do you think?

[steep atlas]

Yeah, we just have a lot less to go off for tyrannotitan

[steep atlas]

Visibly smaller here

[tough parcel]

Here, please use these instead of decade-old skeletals

[undone rapids]

Here's Titan with Sue, though Titan here has a more upright standing posture

[tough parcel]

Um...Glaive...I just did that.........please delete this or I will sue you

[queen oar]

What if they want to use decade-old skeletals?

[steep atlas]

Case closed

[dapper spoke]

Nope lol just moved it back same image put it moved foward

[undone rapids]

Sorry, I will have to call my Lawyer

[paper parcel]

Hear me out, what if the reason the moon is white is because a argentinosaurus literally outgrew earth and collapsed into the moon leaving its bones

[tough parcel]

Then I will need to strike them from the record

[queen oar]

@undone rapids Hey Glaive, how do you think Utahraptor would look like?

[steep atlas]

Look at what they just posted man

[dapper spoke]

You were saying that tt was 1 meter shorter than tt but that imagr shows less than 30cm height difference

[undone rapids]

I don't know.... Dromeosaurs are horrible creatures that take attention away from Abelisaurs

[steep atlas]

Length. And not a full meter

[queen oar]

What If I told you I have a Ekrixinatosaurus reconstruction? But it may have aged like milk

[paper parcel]

I wonder how big dinos could get with low gravity lmfao

[tough parcel]

Your own or a skeletal?

[queen oar]

My own. Oh and Bonaparte is here.

[dapper spoke]

You claimed it was 1 meter taller tho this image shoes less than 15cm difference

[steep atlas]

@dapper spoke check it out bud

[tough parcel]

Good heavens, it's chubby

[paper parcel]

Real low gravity sauropod from a terraformed mars

[undone rapids]

I really like the Skull, Its Great!!

[steep atlas]

Read the numbers, not some thing you made yourself. 12.4 m vs 11.6 m

[queen oar]

Yeah, I was using you know that old ass low quality skeletal from some old ass paper describing Ekrixinatosaurus? yeah, tried to use that and make sense of it with Skorpio's proportions.

[tough parcel]

I think I did smth similar but the chart's lost to time

[dapper spoke]

Ok i was wrong on the length part i'll admit that but you said that there was a 1 meter difference in height lol

[steep atlas]

No, I said there was a nearly 1 m difference in length

[dapper spoke]

Does that look like nearly a 1 meter to you lol?

[queen oar]

Thanks!

[steep atlas]

Yes, 0.8 is close to 1

[paper parcel]

This conservation would not have happened if the devs didn't rename popular dinos to obscure ones and make them oversized

[dapper spoke]

???? The biggest gap between their heights is less than the head of the women what are you on

[undone rapids]

1.2 meters here, in length

[steep atlas]

Dude i'm still talking about length, not height. Height is variable

[tough parcel]

I think @stiff osprey measures by centra (aka what if the dinosaur were fully stretched out) so that may be skewing perception as well

[dapper spoke]

I already said i was wrong on that why are you still talkig about it lol you still also said that its 1m taller

[paper parcel]

I just measure based on reliable paleoartists

[steep atlas]

No, I didn't say that buddy

[tough parcel]

Here, Random's typing so we'll see what they see on TTT vs Rex lengths and then we're gonna go play Rhamph on Riparia

[stiff osprey]

What is happening

[steep atlas]

1 m height difference when both are in neutral posture is crazy

[paper parcel]

Tyrannotitan can facetank trex irl and is the size of apatosaurus trust

[queen oar]

🫃

[tough parcel]

People are arguing that TTT is longer/taller than Rex but I'm just trying to confirm if you measure along the centra or along the top

[charred hearth]

why do people get so defensive over dinosaur scaling, if your wrong your wrong, if your right your right

[stiff osprey]

I measure along the centra like everyone else

[dapper spoke]

I swear you said that or someone did

[steep atlas]

I didn't lol

[slender patio]

@dapper spoke @steep atlas
I believe the thing I just replied to is what y'all are talking about?

[paper parcel]

I mean we all know camarasaurus solos both and is taller then both

[stiff osprey]

It seems like the confusion is people mistook Tyrannotitan is 1m shorter (less long) for Tyrannotitan is 1m shorter (less tall)?

because the difference in height is only like 20cm

[steep atlas]

I said it myself too

[slender patio]

I think that's where the confusion is too, yeah

[tough parcel]

This is also using Sue for Rex and not a "more average" individual so honestly, TTT being approximately the same height/length as Rex isn't a sin but IIRC Rex weighs significantly more at the same lengths

[paper parcel]

I just hate tyrannotitan in game and hope it gets a slot reduction

[charred hearth]

the average for rex is 8 tons right?

[steep atlas]

Yeah that's 100% what happened lol. 1 meter shorter in height would ve ridiculous

[craggy trench]

6-8 is usually the average range I hear

[violet crater]

I dont know my rexes good but isnt it 10 tons? or is 10 tons their bite force?

[stiff osprey]

a hypothetical 12.8m Tyrannotitan would weigh 9 tonnes using the same methodology that gets 12.8m Sue to 11 tonnes

[light osprey]

Please stretch your dinosaurs

[tough parcel]

Nanotitanus...?

And yea, 6-8 or 7-9 are the usual "averages"

[paper parcel]

I hate giganotosaurus glazers who say they can solo trex.

[charred hearth]

isnt 6 or 7 undersized for rex?

[dapper spoke]

Something like that

[undone rapids]

One meter shorter in height would be more like yangchuanosaurus and sue

[steep atlas]

I mean, it's possible, but i think t rex has some clear physical advantages

[stiff osprey]

six seven is the 'average' T.rex size including all specimens, so it's counting juveniles as well. If you count only the fully grown rexes (which is trix, scotty, sue, and a couple of glupshitto fragments) average goes to 9-10t

[tough parcel]

I wouldn't give them the time of day, they're trying to troll and get attention for themselves

[steep atlas]

Eh i'm just killing time at work

[charred hearth]

what age is the most common for rex fossils? like , how old were majority when they died?

[paper parcel]

Fair

[paper parcel]

The damage the jurassic park movies past the second done to the paleo community will never be fixed

[charred hearth]

majority died before they became adults? so would it be sub abults we find the most fossils of?

[stiff osprey]

most rex fossils are young adults (past reproductive maturity, not yet fully grown)

[charred hearth]

how old is our oldest rex?

[undone rapids]

Sue around 50ish if we go by a recent paper, 30ish if you go by older estimates

[misty scarab]

dang

[light osprey]

This is why we will measure average mass by this metric but only by skeletally mature specimens of Edmontosaurus and triceratops

[stiff osprey]

Tyrannosaurus must be smaller than other popular things at all costs

[paper parcel]

Camarasaurus literally solos every dino trust

[charred hearth]

her kid is gonna inheritant the curse of getting beat up and only being able to take down stuff as large as you if your jumping them

[paper parcel]

Sauropods are just bigger then most dinos lmfao, and no land dino is argent sized

[queen oar]

aw damn 😔

[misty scarab]

aucasaurus

[undone rapids]

HELL YEAH!!!

[steep atlas]

Aucasaurus bigger than T rex confirmed

[zealous ravine]

Unenlagiine?

[charred hearth]

was it morally wrong to free the dinosaurs in fallen kingdom and destroying the ecosystem so they all didnt suffer and get gassed and die?

[queen oar]

Buitreraptor

[misty scarab]

[queen oar]

Do we have good figures/photos of Pycnonemosaurus material?

[zealous ravine]

A few issues I can go into later but the main ones are the soft tissue on the head and the feathers. Feathers appear to be simple filamentous ones but it should have proper pennaceous feathers

[queen oar]

Technically it is, but it's like a Penguin, for no reason.

[charred hearth]

would you guys say paleo-accurate dinosaurs have a place in The jurassic park franchise ( speficially the movies ) or no due to clashing to hard with the aesthetic of it?

[misty scarab]

honestly just depends on the species sometimes, but they’d likely add some sort of stylization maybe

[zealous ravine]

Still wouldn’t look quite like that but that is an interesting idea

[queen oar]

Would you be a Penguin-like Unenlagiine?

[undone rapids]

Yes, in its description and Delcourt 2016

[queen oar]

that's a leg bone, yeah?

[undone rapids]

Yup, Tibia. It used it to smash the skulls of other dinosaurs

[misty scarab]

big fella

[queen oar]

we have some hip bones, and caudals, right?

[misty scarab]

I truly wish we had more material

[steep atlas]

Genuinely pickle shaped

[undone rapids]

That one looks nice but is a bit too short and other stuff.

[queen oar]

those we only have illustrations, right?

[outer tusk]

short in what area

[undone rapids]

That's all the material yeah. Larger than every other overlapping described abeli

[misty scarab]

Thanos simonattoi

[undone rapids]

In height iirc, Was also a bit too wide there. Random's is better

[queen oar]

Yeah, do we know how reliable the illustrations of those materials are? At least from the papers describing them

[outer tusk]

very reliable

[undone rapids]

Dunno how would would determine that without 3D scans of the material. I did find a 2017 revision I did not know exist. Has quite a few images : https://treatment.plazi.org/GgServer/xhtml/038A87B94F3BFF94CDC9D3B8D48CAED4

[queen oar]

@tough parcel can I ask something really specific?

[tough parcel]

No not really

[charred hearth]

damn

[tough parcel]

I'm busy cracking on finals

[balmy oyster]

You’re cracking the…finals?

[stiff osprey]

The cold blooded sauropod could not handle the antarctic climate (ignore the sauropods we have found in antarctica)

[runic heart]

That’s what confused me, yeah.

[light osprey]

Is somewhat before the rapid deterioration of climate in the early Maastrichtian, so maybe not cold but they are present in environments where poikilothermic animals are lower in diversity

[foggy crypt]

Oh I forgot, more of my museum pictures.

[stiff osprey]

The fossil ray looks so tough

[foggy crypt]

Sorry I forgot some

[waxen jewel]

What museum is this?

[foggy crypt]

Field Museum, the one with Sue the T rex

[waxen jewel]

Oh sick!

[foggy crypt]

Just photo dumping XD, showing what I saw

That should be enough for today. Till next time.

Oh I forgot

[misty scarab]

so dope

[mental cloak]

God this is so sick
All the fossils
Its so emotional for me so see these creature skeletons

[steep atlas]

wait until you see them in person

[little mauve]

My partner isn't even much of a paleo nerd but she started crying when she saw her first T. rex in person

What's everyone's favorite museum? Mines gotta be AMNH, it's my childhood go-to and just set the bar really high really young

[warped peak]

Tyrell by default but the AMNH has stuff I really want to see

[craggy trench]

sadly where I grew up we didnt have any museums but I adore the Smithsonian

[tough parcel]

Jurassic World would have you believe the people are sick and tired of the dinosaurus...

[little mauve]

Tyrell is my second favorite, only been once but it's mind blowing

[tough parcel]

It is the innate human nature to scream and holler at two giant lizards duking it out...evidence of a genetic memory...?

[cloud dagger]

Natural history museum in london was pretty cool, haven’t really visited any other bigger museum since i live in a small country which has pretty much nothing

[little mauve]

Realest thing you've ever said

[tough parcel]

Yea cause everything else I say is true!

[little mauve]

NHM London is great but I felt a little cramped in their dino gallery, missed Dippy too but the whale is pretty cool I guess

[tough parcel]

The Houston museum has a Dippy rearing up(?) and it's just so funny because there's so much horizontal space for them to mount it but they just made the poor roofer build up

[little mauve]

NHM literally has archaeopteryx though so who can complain. The marine reptiles are amazing as well.

[little mauve]

Part of what's so impressive about the AMNH rearing Barosaurus mount is just how high the ceiling in the room is

[tough parcel]

I agree and rearing sauropods can work, it's just that the Houston museum decided modern minimalism looks cool

[craggy trench]

a huh sure

[little mauve]

RTMP has this cool kind of 70s/80s modernism to it that has aged really well but thats lush compared to what people do today

[tough parcel]

I love my solid black ceilings and white pedestals

[tight kettle]

A general reminder to please keep this channel on-topic with real-life paleontological discussion. Please review the pinned channel guidelines, as well as the server #rules.

[paper parcel]

Giganotosaurus glazers bad

[violet crater]

Im looking at sizes and holy leed is gonna be a big boi.

[mental cloak]

Yeah he is pretty big
One of the biggest fish out there

[marsh tapir]

Also, please keep in mind that that, as much as why we understand how the conversation got to this point and why you'd make the argument as to why it'd be on topic, there's a general server rule specifically not allowing religious topics, Rule 11:

No discussion about politics, religion, or personal issues or dramas.

If you have any questions or concerns about the server #rules or their enforcement, reach out via @feral crane, as these would also not be among the allowed topics on this channel.

[violet crater]

What are your guys favorite pterosaurs?

[marsh tapir]

@balmy oyster @tough parcel Please, use @feral crane should you wish to discuss the server rules or their enforcement.

[mental cloak]

Hatzegopteryx

[violet crater]

Overall or just ingame?

[mental cloak]

Overall
I love hatz
He's my fav pterosayr

[little mauve]

Anyway, anybody read Olsen & McDonald 2026? https://bioone.org/journals/bulletin-of-the-peabody-museum-of-natural-history/volume-67/issue-1/014.067.0106/Environmental-Context-of-Triassic-Jurassic-Lagerstätten-in-Newark-Supergroup-Rift/10.3374/014.067.0106.full

[light osprey]

Lancian robbing the aura from every azdarchoid with each silly crest shape

[outer tusk]

what aura did any of these guys have

[mental cloak]

Menacing aura

[light osprey]

Stork aura

[violet crater]

is anadontasaurus just anky? or is it a whole new dinosaur.

[outer tusk]

Wellhno aura comes from being retro quetz skull recon and the other two come from a 2010s mobile park game

[runic heart]

This guy’s got no aura left to lose.

[outer tusk]

uh very different genus and species from anky

[violet crater]

The dinosaurs are actually so good. (im talking about the tv show)

[balmy oyster]

Different species

[outer tusk]

anyone here talked about the fake spinosaurus species "spinosaurus doursjuvencus" or whatever its called

[mental cloak]

This is cool

[runic heart]

It was actually pretty decent yeah.

[light osprey]

Cause they made its face look like a dried avocado

[outer tusk]

too bad they didn't get to do a scene like this with another pterosaur

[little mauve]

Great study imo some excellent old specimens being revaluated and gives a picture of the Triassic/Jurassic extinction and aftermath

[mental cloak]

They r friends:D

[foggy crypt]

I thought it was cool, plus it is a possibility that it looked like a black vulture, facial wise not body wise

[mental cloak]

Yes!
Its awesome to see that we r geting more things around this topic!!
And that makes me excited af

[foggy crypt]

Trope, it's cool, that or ornithocheirus

[balmy oyster]

Ambulocetus

[paper parcel]

Furry crocodile

[ionic linden]

geosternbergia/ P. sternbergi

[violet crater]

Nobody is saying Anurognathus ammoni, 😔

[foggy crypt]

True

[light osprey]

Everyday new lagerstatten are published on while the Maastrichtian is left to wither away in the Patterson Gap

[little mauve]

Embrace ichnotaxa, the record of living flesh

Brontozoids!!

[queen oar]

Can someone put a Velociraptor's sclerotic ring inside a Utahraptor's orbit?

[mental cloak]

Ig
Why u want that

[steep atlas]

Tropeognathus probably

And either hatzegopteryx or quetzalcoatlus, and nyctosaurus, and istiodactylus

[fossil ingot]

Different Animal/Genus
Close relative

[fossil ingot]

Arambourgiania
Still sad it was just bullied in The Dinosaurus

[tough parcel]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1152346191061860512/1479625654210400256/7418E19D-3C4F-4F8C-854F-EE4013B2E81D.gif

[queen oar]

As a reference

[mental cloak]

Would dinosaurs liked bbq

[little mauve]

with some of them putting on hundreds of kg per year there'd probably be little they wouldn't eat

[mental cloak]

Bbq bacon burger

[hasty seal]

Utahraptor was weak velociraptor was the goat

[mental cloak]

Sure

[hasty seal]

Rex had bad eyesight and if you stand still it can't see you

[rich vessel]

I enjoy this

[hasty seal]

Triceratops was a weak herbivore just like parasorolafus

[ionic linden]

https://tenor.com/view/speed-ishowspeed-reaction-reactions-meme-gif-8141100727479891642

[hallow spear]

Ah yes falcons 9th version of spinosaurus and friends!

[mental cloak]

Stop talkin to urself
Take ur meds

[hasty seal]

Huh

[craggy trench]

Bad skeletal everyone knows spino had long legs and hunted on land

[mental cloak]

Actualy spino didn thave legs he was a snake

[paper parcel]

I love trex

[pure sable]

I love Campto

[keen citrus]

I love allo

[pure sable]

I love Alio

[balmy oyster]

I love Torvo

[wintry sluice]

I love Yi

[runic heart]

I’m going to have to agree with this one.

[outer tusk]

I mean I think that's obivous

[runic heart]

Got me thinking, aside from hell creek, what Maastrichtian environment do we know the second-most about that would be a better candidate for this?

[rare bough]

spinosaurus europus is bigger

[cloud dagger]

Idk is this the second most known but i don’t think deccan traps and its environment, extinction event and recovery is handled in paleo media at all

[dire stag]

Lol bro has the worst takes

[dire stag]

Oh it's ragebait, you got us. Gg, well played

[coral forge]

Naashoibito member, Ouled Abdoun Basin, Nemegt Formation

[rare bough]

whats parasorolafus

[dire stag]

What are the contenders for the biggest hadrosaur? Or is it agreed upon that shantung was the largest (of course in terms of estimated weight)?

Is the biggest hadrosaur the biggest non-sauropod herbivore?

[rare bough]

lambeos

[coral forge]

Shantungosaurus, Magnapaulia, Edmontosaurus annectens, Hypsibema, Ojo Alamo kritosaur

[dire stag]

Seems like shantungosaurus was the largest non-sauropod herbivore/dinosaur that we know of

[coral forge]

it was

[sudden wind]

Anteosaurus my beloved

[rare bough]

you dont know of

[vestal frigate]

Talking ill of utahraptors are we? Smh

[rich vessel]

Could anurognathus rotate its feet and/or toes to some degree? Working on a personal project and the feet and/or toes might be slightly or somewhat inaccurate

[steep atlas]

This looks really good

[vestal frigate]

I believe so not 100% sure

[vestal frigate]

Also hope the drawing goes well 🩷

[rich vessel]

Much obliged but this time it’s a clay figure

[vestal frigate]

thats even cooler!

[rich vessel]

My plan is to make it have a DeadSound style to it, leaning into certain colors that go well together and possibly having a color that contrasts to the rest

The clay is Das Air Dry clay and it’s much different than the crayola clay I’ve used before, I quite like it, I chose a terracotta color and I plan to follow that color when I paint it

[tough parcel]

https://streamable.com/4p2p9l

[runic heart]

It’s not… THAT bad. But it’s still a bad design.

Also I think they’re still too small considering their size next to the edmontosaurus.

[tough parcel]

Consider the graph

Nvm it's disabled

[coral forge]

did they show spinosaurus dying from the asteroid....?

[stiff osprey]

spinosaurus when the sea level rises moderately

[hasty seal]

Ya I hate those dang drombeos

[paper timber]

Did humans live longer than Dinosaurs or opposite? I read an article about it but its too long for me to read all of it to know the true answer 😅

[undone rapids]

Well we have big theropods like rex, meraxes living to 40s-50s and big sauropods getting so old we can't really estimate it reliably. While some seem to have shorter lifespans like majung was 20ish years for the oldest we have iirc. Aucasaurus was also fully grown at around 11 years old and is bigger than any living bear. It varies.

[mental cloak]

Jurassic park 7

[queen oar]

What even happened to this guy?

[tough parcel]

Washed away

[mental cloak]

Just a Generic sauropod i think

[queen oar]

The user, not the Anthropomorph Brontosaur.

[tough parcel]

Washed away by Big Paleo (real life)

[mental cloak]

Damn

[queen oar]

Got extinct and can now be found in the Hell Creek Formation

Paleontology Analog Horror where people get turned into Dinosaurs and suffer the most horrible deaths found in the fossil record.

[mental cloak]

Ok that's a cool idea
But idk about the analog horrir thing
It should/could be smth outside digital horror

[queen oar]

@undone rapids Did you know? Utahraptor

[undone rapids]

I wish I didn't

[queen oar]

Is it true that you like Simosuchus?

[undone rapids]

Maybe

[queen oar]

Is it true that the " Cannibalistic Majungatholus " fight in Jurassic Fight Club made you very sad?

[coral forge]

humans have been around for like a few hundred thousand years, whereas dinosaurs have been around for over 200 million

[mental cloak]

Majungatholus

[misty scarab]

made me dissapointed

[steep atlas]

Me

[mental cloak]

There's more time with dinosaurs
Than humans ever did

[queen oar]

It's in quotations for a reason

[undone rapids]

I haven't watched any of the older docs than PHP really.

[queen oar]

Damn

[mental cloak]

U should watch The Dinosaurs tho

[undone rapids]

Got more into paleo cuz I was in islecord and just read Paleotalk channel often

[coral forge]

only real ones watched clips of documentaries on YouTube because they couldn't watch them anywhere else

[queen oar]

That means Glaive lost peak ( Dinosaur Planet )

[mental cloak]

Dinosaur planet is very ngl

[undone rapids]

I have see the Auca scenes of that on YT, its nice

[queen oar]

How many Abelisaurs, did PHP have in comparison to Dinosaur Planet?

[undone rapids]

3 abelis and 1 noasaur in PHP. idk what DP had in total

[mental cloak]

U can watch the entierly of dinosaur planet on yt

[queen oar]

2, Aucasaurus and that guy from the Insular Islands from Europe? Idk it's name. It's Tarascosaurus ( I checked )

[undone rapids]

Genusaurus? Oh I see

[mental cloak]

Its name starts with a E no? Ah ok

Is there a dinosaur literaly named Dinosaurus?

[queen oar]

yeah, a Therapsid.

[mental cloak]

Oh my god

[queen oar]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurus

[mental cloak]

Ofc it's controversal

[paper timber]

I dont like where that landed exactly lmao

[coral forge]

dp had rugops, skorpiovenator and majungasaurus

[stiff osprey]

That's pd, not dp

dinosaur planet only had aucasaurus

[charred hearth]

is leed top 3 biggest fish or is it just top 5?

[runic heart]

Haven’t seen a lot of people talking about the Surviving Earth trailer. What do we think…

[ionic linden]

i think i havent seen it yet

[charred hearth]

https://x.com/Visceral9000/status/2049851226678775980 thoughts?

🦎Visceral🪶 (Tomistoma enjoyer🐊) (@Visceral9000)

Still to this day one of the most terrifying depictions of a megalodon.

And yet, it was still portrayed as a curious animal rather than a monster.

▶ Play video

X · Apr 30, 2026, 1:59 PM

[quasi token]

sea monsters is so good can we get a second one

[runic heart]

What do we think these two are? Triassic, since there’s no Jurassic episode.

[charred hearth]

demon

[zenith rose]

Probably demon..yeah

[charred hearth]

what quality is survivng earth giving rn?

wwd2025 or prehestoric planet

[outer tusk]

way above WW25

[runic heart]

Accuracy quality or like, filmmaking quality?

[charred hearth]

accuracy

[runic heart]

Well idk about behavior yet but most of the Wwd2025 designs are more accurate. Dinosaur-wise anyways.

[charred hearth]

more accurate then survivng earth?

[outer tusk]

tf no

[runic heart]

Which dinosaurs from Surviving Earth are better?

[outer tusk]

oh def