What's your favourite dinosaur?

[Isopod]

View attachment Dinosaur ankylosaurus 1.webp
( https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/dinosaur-nodosaur-fossil-discovery )

1. Whats your favourite dinosaur?
2. Have you ever found a fossil (dinosaur or otherwise)?
3. Do you have any favourite non-dinosaur extinct creatures?
4. If you could travel back in time to see dinosaurs IRL, would you?

 

[Klystron]

1. Triceratops.
2. Yes, Columbian mammoth bone fragments unearthed by storm in NW Las Vegas, NV.
3. Mammoths.
4. No. Read "A Gun for Dinosaur" by L. Sprague Decamp.

 

[Vanadium 50]

My favorite?

Not the momma!

 

[Hornbein]

1. Triceratops
2. Not sure. Probably some wimpy fossils.
3. Passenger pigeon. They used to darken the sky.
4. Of course.

 

[berkeman]

99. Velociraptor

Is that a real dinosaur? I tried researching it, but I got mixed results...

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

https://images.saymedia-content.com...MTE4MDcyMjc2MzI4/velociraptor-quick-facts.jpg

 

[Bystander]

Is that a real dinosaur?

Yes, indeed...Jurassic Park "intuits" behaviors/instincts, but otherwise quite real Cretaceous critter.

 

[berkeman]

Yes, indeed...Jurassic Park "intuits" behaviors/instincts, but otherwise quite real Cretaceous critter.

Yikes. So the recent post PF about time-traveling dinosaur hunters takes on an extra dimension?

 

[strangerep]

{Velociraptor...] Yes, indeed...Jurassic Park "intuits" behaviors/instincts, but otherwise quite real Cretaceous critter.

Except that... (TIL)... they were only the size of a turkey.

Still,... being chased by a murderous turkey, gobble-gobbling for your blood, can be quite scary (so I've been told...)

 

[DennisN]

1. Whats your favourite dinosaur?
2. Have you ever found a fossil (dinosaur or otherwise)?
3. Do you have any favourite non-dinosaur extinct creatures?
4. If you could travel back in time to see dinosaurs IRL, would you?

1. Philosoraptor:

2. No. And I haven't been looking for such.

3. Not anyone in particular. There have been many cool species around.

4. Yes. But not when the big asteroid is/was about to hit Earth.

 

[Baluncore]

1. Whats your favourite dinosaur?
2. Have you ever found a fossil (dinosaur or otherwise)?
3. Do you have any favourite non-dinosaur extinct creatures?
4. If you could travel back in time to see dinosaurs IRL, would you?

1. The coal industry.
2. Millions of them.
3. Thylacine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine
4. Only if I could travel forwards again.

 

[Oldman too]

Still,... being chased by a murderous turkey, gobble-gobbling for your blood, can be quite scary (so I've been told...)

Been there, done that. Don't go around a tom turkey without your turkey bat! By the way have you ever noticed that the Dino on the Jurassic Park book cover and movie posters wasn't from the Jurassic era?
Crichton chose it for effect, not accuracy.

 

[BillTre]

1. Whats your favourite dinosaur?
Varies from time to time.

2. Have you ever found a fossil (dinosaur or otherwise)?
Yes, several, mostly plants or molluscs or crustaceans.

3. Do you have any favourite non-dinosaur extinct creatures?
Many.
Here's a good one:
Dickensonia:

One of the first metazoan (multicellular) animals that left informative fossils.
It would settle on an algae or bacterial mat (it was a simpler ecosystem back then) and digest what was underneath, leaving a "footprint".

4. If you could travel back in time to see dinosaurs IRL, would you?
Yes, but I would want to bring back samples and videos.

Except that... (TIL)... they were only the size of a turkey.

There are several velociraptor-like species. They have different names, but are pretty similar.

The first discovered velociraptors were small, but after the first movie the much larger versions were found, like Utahraptor:

It was a heavy-built, ground-dwelling, bipedal carnivore. It contains a single species, Utahraptor ostrommaysi, which is the largest-known member of the family Dromaeosauridae, measuring 23 ft (7.0 m) and weighing 680 kg (1,500 lb).

 

[Isopod]

I love reading all the responses, keep 'em coming!
As for me...

1. Whats your favourite dinosaur?
Gotta be T-rex.

2. Have you ever found a fossil (dinosaur or otherwise)?
Yes quite a few fossils- mostly ammonites, fossil sea sponges, fossil corals and shells.

3. Do you have any favourite non-dinosaur extinct creatures?

Koolasuchus immediately springs to mind, it was a giant amphibian that survived well into the dinosaur times and lived in the Antarctic Circle when it was a strange polar forest. Its type was already a relic by the dinosaur times but its theorized that it managed to survive in polar forests because while crocodiles had out-competed most of its kind to extinction elsewhere, the cold environment was too cold for crocodiles to survive in.
When I was a kid, it was Walking With Dinosaurs which introduced me to this great prehistoric animal in the Antarctic episode:



I also really like a lot of European Ice Age fauna, such as Cave Bears, Cave Lions, giant wolves and more. Its crazy to think our modern species lived amongst and interacted with so many giant animals! Such a different time in our history.

4. If you could travel back in time to see dinosaurs IRL, would you?
Only if nothing I did would affect the outcomes of anything, that I could remain safe and return back to the present day when I was done.

 

[Isopod]

1. Whats your favourite dinosaur?
Varies from time to time.

2. Have you ever found a fossil (dinosaur or otherwise)?
Yes, several, mostly plants or molluscs or crustaceans.

3. Do you have any favourite non-dinosaur extinct creatures?
Many.
Here's a good one:
Dickensonia:
View attachment 299090
One of the first metazoan (multicellular) animals that left informative fossils.
It would settle on an algae or bacterial mat (it was a simpler ecosystem back then) and digest what was underneath, leaving a "footprint".

4. If you could travel back in time to see dinosaurs IRL, would you?
Yes, but I would want to bring back samples and videos.


There are several velociraptor-like species. They have different names, but are pretty similar.
View attachment 299091

The first discovered velociraptors were small, but after the first movie the much larger versions were found, like Utahraptor:

I really like Dickinsonia as well. A few years back it was discovered that most Dickinsonia fossils were not true fossils but were instead casts from the animals soft bodies where sediments had filled in cavity spaces left by their bodies. This discovery is now helping people develop a better picture of what the creatures might have looked like (and what exactly we are looking at in the fossils): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190325130441.htm

Up until 2018, it was still debated whether the creatures were in fact animals, but a discovery of fat molecules in the creatures proved that they were definitely animals beyond all doubt: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180920160954.htm

 

[collinsmark]

This thread reminds me of some diagrams I created for a different Physics Forums thread, about 10 or 15 years ago or so. Here are the diagrams. You should be able to figure out the context -- they're pretty self-explanatory.