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What annoys you about paleontology?; Rant on about moronic theories, complaints, or just animals that annoy you.
Topic Started: Sep 28 2013, 05:04 PM (256,357 Views)
CyborgIguana
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Protofeathers are what I had in mind too. I don't think pennaceous feathers evolved in dinosaurs until around the middle Jurassic.
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BossAggron
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Formerly Dilophoraptor

With the new discoveries in Siberia describing their fuzz is similar to theropods the earliest dinosaurs probably did have some sort of fuzz.
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trisdino
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Again, we can draw back the line pretty far. The severeal theropod groups having feathers or proto feathers obviously indicates common ancestry there, we know the evolution of more advanced feathers. Quills constructed of feather-like materials, and protofuzz on early dinosaurs, seem to indicate that fuzz is ancestral to all dinosaurs. Pycnofibres on pterosaurs seem to indicate that fuzz is ancestral to pterosaurs and dinosaurs, and genes found in crocs seems to indicate that fuzz is ancestral to all achrosaurs.

If you REALLY want to stretch it, you could argue that maybe fuzz, if it really did exist that far back, is related to fur, and that the common ancestor of dyapsids and synapsids had fuzz, which evolved both into achrosaur fuzz, and fur, but that seems like a bloody big stretch, and is in no way evident.
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BossAggron
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Formerly Dilophoraptor

trisdino
Jul 12 2014, 11:02 AM
If you REALLY want to stretch it, you could argue that maybe fuzz, if it really did exist that far back, is related to fur, and that the common ancestor of dyapsids and synapsids had fuzz, which evolved both into achrosaur fuzz, and fur, but that seems like a bloody big stretch, and is in no way evident.
You have to admit, that would be pretty cool if it was like that.
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stargatedalek
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I'm not slow! That's just my moe!

it may be a bit of a stretch but I don't see anything suggesting otherwise
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CyborgIguana
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The fact that when I point out paleontological inaccuracies to most people in real life, they just say "How can you possibly know that's inaccurate? No one's ever seen dinosaurs alive, dude!" Just because we don't know exactly what they looked like doesn't mean that anything goes.
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stargatedalek
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I'm not slow! That's just my moe!

^this happens to me too
and then those same people claim that theres no way tyrannosaurus could have had feathers >_<

when I try to draw something without using a reference, and then when I check it later I realize I got everything basically right except for some little thing but I can't fix it xD
Edited by stargatedalek, Jul 12 2014, 09:49 PM.
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CyborgIguana
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The second thing happens to me a lot too, except most of the time I find out that I screwed up a lot of things rather than just one! xD

BTW I've been playing that Dinosaur Hunter: Deadly Shores game. It's pretty addictive, despite its inaccuracies.
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Bigwhale
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But their carnivorous aerial Archaeopteryx creeps me out sometimes xD . Especially when you're surprise attacked when reloading xD .

Also the fact that any medium sized dinosaurs are called raptors, eventhough they are not from then Maniraptoran family. It annoys me.
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CyborgIguana
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My family even calls small ornithopods raptors! But I guess it's just the same as how every large theropod is a T. rex, every pterosaur is a "pterodactyl", every sauropod is a "Brontosaurus", and every ceratopsian is Triceratops (just count the horns, people!) xD
Edited by CyborgIguana, Jul 13 2014, 04:24 AM.
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trisdino
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I hate how little people actually care about what animals are. I mean, I hear people all the freaking time, in almost every game with one, call styracosaurus triceratops... for gods sake, triceratops means THREE HORN FACE! Styracosaurus is well known for only having ONE. But they do not care, to them, a triceratops is not a triceratops because of its actual species, but rather, because of a vague sense of anatomical similarities, basically making all ceratopsians triceratops(ses?). If we were to apply this logic to modern animals, all cats would be lions, because they all share some vague traits, domestic cats are just mini-lions, tigers are just stripped lions, cheetahs are just spotted lions, but hyenas are not lions, because they look more like dogs.

This same principle is applied to almost all prehistoric animals: All large theropods are "tyrannosauruses(tyrannosauri?), often called tyrannosaurs, even though that is a group, and not the plural of tyrannosaurus. All sauropods are either brontosaurs or long necks, one of which never even existed to begin with, and one of which is a name so childishly vague that it could be applied to a giraffe. All dromeosaurs are raptors, even though "raptor" is actually a term for eagles, which only a few species of dromeosaurs have, and all dromeosaur-like dinosaurs(troodon, ornitholestes, proceratosaurus, etc), are also raptors, even though the only thing they have in common is their size. This sometimes goes so far as to them labeling notosuchians as "raptors", because they are bipedal.

This trend continues into pterosaurs and marine reptiles, which are of course referred to universally as "pterodactyls" and "sea dinosaurs", even though one is a term for a single group, and the other completely false. Both of these animals, together with most of even vaguely reptilian creatures from around that time, are labelled as dinosaurs, which is probably why many people think mammals came from dinosaurs, because mammal-like reptiles are also labelled as such. This gets to the point where gorgonopsids, from the permian, almost a hundred million years before the first dinosaurs, are labelled as such, by virtue of them being big and scaly. Of course, this stereotype of dinosaurs typically would not apply to any actual dinosaurs, as the scaly huge monstrous killing machines typically viewed as dinosaurs, are not actually present in the fossil record. Rather, a notosuchian, a bloody crocodilyliform, looks more like the public's view of a dinosaur then the blimmin' tyrannosaurus rex itself.


[Rant mode - disengaged]
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Okeanos
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Could you name all the Kardashians for me Trisdino?

Ok, my point is how do you expect everyone to know everything about dinosaurs if they have no interest in them? Frankly I'd be surprised if half my family could recognise Styracosaurus. My parents could, having followed my interest in dinosaurs when I was younger, but I doubt anyone other than them could.

Dinosaurs (and I mean real dinosaurs, not the public image of dinosaurs) aren't that well known outside of the 'Tyrannosaurus, Spinosaurus, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, Pterodactyl, Velociraptor' circle and are by no means common knowledge, which is what it sounds like you expect them to be. Be a bit more lenient and understanding next time ;)

(Not to mention people get confused about modern animals all the time. If you've never heard someone get Cheetah/Jaguars/Leopards confused then I'd say you're lying)
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trisdino
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I know that you can not expect them to know everything, I would never expect a laymen to know the difference between torosaurus and xenoceratops, but in the case of styracosaurus in triceratops, I thought everybody knew that triceratops was the three horned one, that is what it is famous for. People will actively point at triceratops and go "Look, its the three horned one!", and then to minutes later, point at styracosaurus and go "look! its triceratops". It really seems like triceratops just means ceratopsian to them, expect, of course, it does not, because protoceratops, microceratus, and all the other distinctly different looking ceratopsians are not called triceratops, to them, they probably do not even exist.

My point is that the laymens understanding of these animals is not lacking, that is fine if you are not big into it, but what little they know is completely and utterly wrong.
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Okeanos
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You realise some people do recognise Styracosaurus and Triceratops are different, but simply do not know the name of the former? It's easier for them to just call it Triceratops, the only dinosaur they know that it resembles. My friends have done that before, asking me what the actual name of the 'Triceratops' is because they know it's a different dinosaur, but using the name Triceratops is the only way they can describe it

You never answered my question, can you name all the Kardashians? xD
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trisdino
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Nope, but I can at least tell the difference between a Kardashian and a sea porcupine.
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