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In principle I agree, but our image of what dinosaurs look like are probably closer to the truth than what we would have gotten had they just jumped to adding s
by dmead 9y ago
In principle I agree, but our image of what dinosaurs look like are probably closer to the truth than what we would have gotten had they just jumped to adding soft tissue.
This is my bearded dragon's x-ray
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/20819094_10102340751138068_1441931428537691081_o.jpg?oh=a1caaa2762fc890acb1ad7543f7285a0&oe=5AE6D3AA https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/20819094_1010...
see all those facial features? That's how it's face looks, almost exactly. The don't even have to use crocs to derive the "reptile skulls look like their faces rule".
- ch4s3 9y agoMany dinosaurs were related to modern birds, the rest were not reptiles either.
- PuffinBlue 9y agoI suppose what you're both saying speaks to the real issue - we lump all dinosaurs into one single 'should look a bit like this' image. It's a silly thing to do of course, humans don't much look like dolphins or rats for instance but we're all mammals. On the face of it that above statement seems a silly thing to say too, but it speaks to the way we tend to just apply 'dinosaur' to an incredibly diverse range of species that lived in multiple different environment right across the planet and across hundreds of millions of years. I think there's probably room to start to acknowledging that 'dinosaur' no longer really can mean 'terrible lizard' and accept that it must speak to the diversity of the species within the category.
- ch4s3 9y agoYeah, I was recently reading about this. It's amazing how diverse they were. They basically dominated every niche across every ecosystem for 100s of millions of years.
- wambotron 9y ago> humans don't much look like dolphins Some do. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COqRV5bUwAAwSkp.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COqRV5bUwAAwSkp.jpg:large
- Xeoncross 9y agoThey've always looked like large reptiles to me, what are the main features that implies modern birds instead?
- ghaff 9y agoAs the sibling comment notes, there's incredible variation. But look at, say, large flightless birds like an ostrich and a therapod dinosaur (three-toed limbs, hollow bones, etc.) and--with the benefit of hindsight--you're left shaking your head and asking why it took so long for someone to draw the connection.
- eponeponepon 9y agoIt really didn't take long for the connection to be drawn - Archaeopteryx was discovered in the 1860s or so, if I remember rightly. What took a long time was for the idea to reach the public and stick.
- logfromblammo 9y agoI think it's in the hips and pelvic bones, mainly. Reptiles and some dinosaurs have a sprawling, splayed-out posture. Other dinosaurs, birds, and mammals have independently-evolved upright postures. The birds apparently evolved from the splayed-hip dinosaurs rather than from the upright-hip dinosaurs, so a change in hip structure could be a decent dividing line. But strictly speaking, birds (Aves) have wings as their forelimbs, rather than arms. The (extinct) moa is an exception in that it had no wings, but that is because it had no forelimbs at all. It is very likely that other theropods besides the birds also had feathers, but it is rare for soft tissues to fossilize, so it can be hard to say what the scale and feather coverage was like for a given species when all you have is a partial skeleton. Determining coloration is almost impossible, though it has been estimated from especially well-preserved fossilized impressions of feathers that showed different spacing between the microstructures on the feather.
- ghaff 9y ago>Reptiles and some dinosaurs have a sprawling, splayed-out posture. Other dinosaurs, birds, and mammals have independently-evolved upright postures. The birds apparently evolved from the splayed-hip dinosaurs rather than from the upright-hip dinosaurs, so a change in hip structure could be a decent dividing line. The traditional categorization is the forward (Saurischian) and backward (Ornithischian) facing pubic bones. But, the categorization isn't perfect and some theropods including birds, which are Saurischians, evolved backward facing pubic bones. (And apparently some Ornithischians evolved pubic bones that at least somewhat forward facing.)
- komali2 9y agoWhy'd you x-ray your bearded dragon? No judgement, just think it's an interesting thing to do.