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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 (256,501 Views)
Galliwasp
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There is a way out. Just not for you.

I never understood the pushback against brush-tailed Therizinosaurs, tbqh. Maybe I don't know the whole story, but AFAIK it only showed up in one game, and no one ever suggested that they definitely looked that way. It's just a nice way to reimagine non-avian dinosaur tails and to explore the different possible ways feathers may have expressed themselves on the body.


That's one thing that does bother me - whenever anything remotely cool or interesting in paleoart becomes popular, it gets immediate public backlash for being "memetic" because it's speculative. I get that people want to avoid rigid and prescriptive definitions of how extinct animals looked, but it often just feels like a way of policing artists and shutting down creative exploration.
Edited by Galliwasp, Jan 27 2018, 12:50 PM.
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Posted Image Xenephos
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ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴏʙsᴇssᴇᴅ

Oh, y'know transitional fossils and how evolution-haters constantly ask for them?
Well, I hate when a new transitional fossil is found and suddenly they ask, "buT WHAT THAT EVOLVE FROM???? WHERE THE FOSsILS?"
It's like a number line that stretches from 0-1. We'll have 0 and 1 and say they're next to each other, and we solve for 0.5 as a midpoint. Then people ask, "But what about 0.25 and 0.75?" And it just keeps doubling/halving until they start asking about 0.999999999 and 0.00000000001 but they're never satisfied with how "incomplete" your number line is, no matter how many new numbers you add
Edited by Xenephos, Jan 29 2018, 07:03 PM.
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magpiealamode
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No good hero is a one-trick phony.

Yeah, honestly transitional fossils are an idea created by people who think of evolution as a series of stepping stones rather than a continual path. If you consider that every individual is one in a stream extending ahead and behind, then there really is no "transition," just organisms that are suited to their environment.

But yeah I've been told that we have yet to find a "missing link." Dude, just look at Tiktaalik...
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Paleodude
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ex-Krampus

magpiealamode
Jan 29 2018, 09:51 PM
Yeah, honestly transitional fossils are an idea created by people who think of evolution as a series of stepping stones rather than a continual path. If you consider that every individual is one in a stream extending ahead and behind, then there really is no "transition," just organisms that are suited to their environment.

But yeah I've been told that we have yet to find a "missing link." Dude, just look at Tiktaalik...
I mean it's not just Tiktaalik, I mean look at pretty much every single feathered dinosaur, early synapsids, and Coelecanth or lungfish today.

Personally I dislike how people say since evolution is a theory and not a low it's not as credible but will then go on to not question other theory like the theory of relativity.
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BossAggron
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Formerly Dilophoraptor

Tiktaalik is the best example because it was right where we expected to find it, Temporally and Geographically.
Edited by BossAggron, Jan 30 2018, 12:05 AM.
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Posted Image Flish
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I know it's been a few months but... this is a pinned topic and I have paleomemes to rant about the existence of:

-Weaponized Diplodocoid tails
-Amphibious Ceratosaurus
-Fishing Dilophosaurus
-Removing cheeks on herbivores that chewed their food (I'm looking at you, Pachycephalosaurus)
-3 ton rule

These are all just examples of stupid "theories" someone put out without actually doing their research, or making false conclusions somehow, and then a bunch of people taking it as fact because that person/people had some influence on the paleontological community, even if these paleomemes CONTRADICT EVIDENCE and/or BIOMECHANICS. The next person who decides to strip their Pachycephalosaurs of their cheeks is PERSONALLY getting their cheeks removed by me so they can tell me how easy it is to chew food with no cheeks.
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stargatedalek
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I'm not slow! That's just my moe!

Don't forget aquatic Koreaceratops and Tyrannosaurus bacterial bite.
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Acinonyx Jubatus
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I AM THE UNSHRINKWRAPPER!

Flish
May 31 2018, 02:36 PM
-Weaponized Diplodocoid tails
Wait, what? I thought there was a study on this. Why isn't it biomechanically possible?
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

Acinonyx Jubatus
May 31 2018, 04:09 PM
Flish
May 31 2018, 02:36 PM
-Weaponized Diplodocoid tails
Wait, what? I thought there was a study on this. Why isn't it biomechanically possible?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that weaponised diplodocid tails were actually supported too. Something to do with particularly beaten up distal caudals.
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Furka
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Female Tyrannosaurus being larger than the male is also a paleomeme taken as fact too often.
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Posted Image Flish
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Incinerox
May 31 2018, 04:26 PM
Acinonyx Jubatus
May 31 2018, 04:09 PM
Flish
May 31 2018, 02:36 PM
-Weaponized Diplodocoid tails
Wait, what? I thought there was a study on this. Why isn't it biomechanically possible?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that weaponised diplodocid tails were actually supported too. Something to do with particularly beaten up distal caudals.
the study found only about 50% of the remains showed fused tail vertebra, which means it's unlikely it was used as a weapon because you'd see fused tail vertebra much more often. I think the study actually pointed that out itself. Another study, actually one specifically on the tail's ability to break the sound barrier, talked about how because the tail itself was so lightweight, the speed it would be required to move at to actually injure an adversary would cause more damage to the tail than the opponent, and the tail itself is actually pretty fragile. It goes on to mention that damage to the tail could be prevented with an armor sheath (which evidence on Diplodocoid tail integument goes against, making this unlikely) or they would have 1-3 meters of excess tissue at the end of the tail to be used as a flail.
Edited by Flish, May 31 2018, 08:47 PM.
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BossAggron
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Formerly Dilophoraptor

A few meters of unsupported meat on the end of the tail would actually be kinda interesting.
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

Flish
May 31 2018, 08:18 PM
or they would have 1-3 meters of excess tissue at the end of the tail to be used as a flail.
Oh snap, what if it DID?

Also, relevant to my ZT projects, i'm about to go back to a paleobotany rant I may have had earlier in this topic.

The current state of paleobotany is archaic at best.

Like, I'm currently working on a Jurassic genus of tree. It's known pretty much throughout the Jurassic, but the species I'm focusing on is Gondwanan in origin. Pachypteris indica. Early Jurassic India, South America and Antarctica. Should be fairly simple given that knowledge.

Nope!

Remains from the Cretaceous of Antarctica have been attributed to this species, and it looks NOTHING like the Jurassic specimens from Hope Bay and Botany Bay samples. On top of that, some South American samples ALSO look nothing like the Jurassic Antarctic specimens too.

And there's no literature on the holotype specimen for the species. So there's nothing I can personally compare images to to figure out what was going on.

How the hell are they coming to these conclusions based on leaf fragments? None of it makes sense and it's impossible to find references without google images flooding me with Xfrog renders (which, when it comes to extinct flora, is totally garbage).

I'm basically building a tree entirely from scratch with nothing but a couple of leaf fragments, a few centimetres of stick, and some implied knowledge on assumed relatives.

Botanists, get your **** together.
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stargatedalek
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I'm not slow! That's just my moe!

Not much in the way of diagrams, but these could help.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0034666794901449

http://bomax.botany.pl/cgi-bin/pubs/data/article_pdf?id=98

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-Pseudodanaeopsis-aberi-Passoni-et-Van-Konijnenburg-van-Cittert-2003-leaf-fragment_fig4_236870096

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Posted Image Flish
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I am so tired of explaining that a 5 mm skin patch is not a basis for claiming that Tyrannosaurus must have been featherless.
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