Dinosaur autism, if we all pool together our love for them they may just live again - Just get on the floor, the raptor has already opened the door

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Spock said:
You still need to build a breeding center to spawn them, no?
Click to expand...
Yeah;
in the 3rd game you can buy dinos outright from the marketplace and immediately deliver them anywhere at least. You can also airlift the bred dinos anywhere, or just not put a fence around the breeding center and release them straight to the people/other dinos. I liked breeding aggressive dinos and have tour trucks go past them; they send the trucks flying and blow them up. Youre able to drive your own car and the dinos will chase you
Spock said:
zoo tycoon does have dinos (not as many, but still).
Click to expand...
Ah I mixed it up with Planet Zoo, my mistake.

Maybe it was this thread but I dreamt Quetzals, Tapajaras, Tropeognathus etc were alive and smashing their heads through peoples windows and trying to eat them last night

Its hard to believe how long dinosaurs existed for, that there were so many of them and theyre all gone now, sans birds. According to google, the Cassowary(1st image) is the most reminiscent of a dino, given that it looks a lot like the Corythoraptor(2nd image), a type of oviraptor from the late Cretaceous. Hope my images dont look like shit since Im a retard phoneposter currently
cassowary-article-tile.jpg Corythoraptor_Restoration.png
 
Pterosaurs are goofy and I love them. Absolutely wonderful stuff to see the frog tactic (all chips in on HUGE MAW and accelerating that HUGE MAW towards prey) applied to airborne flock animals.

Some of the trackways and nesting fossils get me misty, if I'm being honest.
 
WEIRD PREHISTORIC ANIMALS!!!!​

We all love them, we all are endeared by them. After a very generous poster recently decided to sponsor one of my effortposts (@Hamstirer *wink wink* *nudge nudge*) I've decided to come back and make my biggest effortpost yet. So without any holdup, le'ts get shit going!

Anomalocaris (and other radiodonts)
1770566165333.png 1770566178967.png 1770566205801.png 1770566422168.png

The poster-boy for weird cambrian goodness, anomalocaris was a radiodont, a weird extinct group of arthropods that once used to rule as the apex predators of the cambrian explosion. Despite that, they were still rather small, being about as meter long, as most life on earth was still very premature, they didn't need to be massive. Despite common popular belief, anomalocaris did not feed on trilobites, as he could only chew soft-bodies prey such as mollusks, annelids and other such creatures. Rather, it turns out that evidence of anomalocaris predation on trilobites, wasn't from anomalocaris itself, but from another radiodont now named Peytoia:
1770566841065.png

Anomalocaris, and most other radiodonts in eneral were some of the best well adapted predators of their time, having some of the most well-developed compound eyes of their time and having a very peculiar way of swimming most resembling a sea skate or a flounder. While anomalocaris would die by the middle cambrian, his radiodont cousins would make it till the great dying before going extinct. One of them being Aegirocassis, which was the largest radiodont, and a filter feeder, being the blue whale of its era:
1770567115278.png1770567127444.png

Brochoadmones
1770567280761.png 1770567289314.png 1770567339009.png
Brochoadmones is a very odd-looking fish, like a scientist asked himself "how many fins can I fit on a fish?" and brought that thought experiment to reality, boasting a whopping 21 fins in total. It was a predatory freshwater fish, 25 cm long and would probably make a sick aquarium fish were it not extinct. It lived in the devonian, in a time where fish of all sorts were exploding in diversity. It filled a niche not too dissimilar from a modern day grouper as it fed on other river creatures. Its exact relation to modern fishes is an enigma, all we know is that it was likely a basal cartilagenous fish, a group that encompasses modern sharks, rays and chimaeras. It lived and died out in the early devonian, however.

Maip macrothorax
1770568192556.png 1770568208006.png 1770568237988.png
Probably my favorite entry in the list, Maip was a very weird looking theropod. For one, it had freakisly long claws for a theropod, being longer than any creature mentioned above and able to split a human in half with a single swipe. It was a megaraptoran, a group of dinosaurs with huge arms and claws, and Maip was the largest of them all. And you know the most ironic thing? Megaraptorans are a group belonging to the tyrannosauroidea, yet developed completely opposite adaptations. Instead of having tiny arms and a huge skul. they have huge arms and a relatively small skull.
It lived in late cretaceous argentina, alongside a very famous dinosaur in carnotaurus as well as prey animals such as the relatively small titanosaur Nullotitan and Isasicursor.
It hunted in a way quite different from any other theropod, grappling its prey into the ground like a bead with its powerful arms as he sliced and bit pieces of their prey until they died. It lived in the late maastrichtian and died off in the K-pg extinction, marking the end of the mesozoic

Thylacocephala
1770568886572.png 1770568898249.png 1770568907630.png 1770568939790.png
This is not a single creature, but reather, an entire group of big-headed extinct crustaceans originating from the upper ordovician that lasted until the santonian period of the late cretaceous. While they might look like some H.R Giger alien monstrosity, they were actually real and once very plentiful in our oceans all around the world. They all were encased in a shell-like carapace and had HUGE compound eyes and had raptorial forelimbs to catch prey and eat detritis, living a life not too dissimilar to shrimp, although much of their way of life is a mystery.

Iniopterygiformes
1770569447118.png 1770569463889.png 1770569479537.png 1770569531258.png 1770569538683.png 1770569571875.png
The Iniopterygiformes were a group of very weird cartilagenous fishes that originated in the devonian and died out in the carboniferous. Being part of the Holocephali, they were closely related to modern day chimaeras, and were just as odd. Their most conspicuous feature were the massive wing-like projections near their back that often were adorned with denticules, which likely had some role in mating, and they swam by flapping their wing-like structures as if "flying" in the ocean. Being a chondrichtyan, they were carnivores that preyed on smaller fish, cascass and invertebrates, but aside from that I couldn't find much about them.

Atopodentatus
1770569981469.png 1770569994674.png 1770570012252.png
Atopodentatus was a genus of basal sauropterygian (group that led to the evolution of placodonts, plesiosaurs and pliosaurs) that lived in the middle triassic. While it was once thought it had a zipper-like mouth, it actually had a very hammer-shaped one that it used to feed on algae stuck in rocks and in the seafloor. It was a semi aquatic herbivore, filling a similar niche to marine iguanas of today.

Dsungaripterus
1770570259489.png 1770570288339.png
Dsungaripterus lived in cretaceous china. Its hooked beak was actually an adaptation to prey on fish, mollusks, crabs, and any sort of marine animals that lived near the coast. It was capable of not only piercing fish, but had a bite strong snough to crack through hard-shelled prey, a generalist durophage and piscivore. It was not the only one, however, as the namesake of its family, the Dsungaripteridae.

Titanosarcolites
1770570691885.png 1770570702051.png 1770570716265.png 1770570740913.png
Believe it or not, this is a clam. Titanosarcolites had some of the oddest shells in the animal kingdom. While not quite the largest clam ever (not even close, actually), it was still massive. It lived in the cretaceous and was found in deposits in the US, Mexico and even Jamaica. Other than its odd shape, its lifestyle wasn't that unusual, as it filter fed just like any other clam.

Shringasaurus
1770570962423.png 1770570973188.png 1770570989297.png 1770571003929.png
From the middle triassic, Shringasaurus was a large allokotosaur, a group of strange herbivorous reptiles from the triassic.
Its horns were used in intraspecific combat whether in battles for territory or for mating opportunities, as well as being able to fight off predators. It had a long neck for its size, so it most likely fed on high vegetation. Not much is known about the animals that lived alongside them, but they most certainly were preyed on by rauisuchians.

Desmatosuchus
1770571314924.png 1770571322478.png 1770571340487.png
As a little nod to my buddy @Crocodylus Acutus, Desmatosuchus was yet another triassic oddity. It was an aetosaur, a group of herbivorous pseudosuchians (related to modern day crocodilians) that looked more like ankylosaurs than anything else.
Not only was very heavily armored, it was also capable of delivering a very powerful tail whip. And it was necessary, for it lived alongside the 6-meter long rauisuchian Postosuchus that preyed on it. It lived in familial herds much like many modern herbivores, which did little to diassuade predation as Postosuchus alongside other carnivores of its time also lived in groups, which is why their armor was so necessary.

Cotylorhynchus
1770571836512.png 1770571783505.png 1770571796098.png
Now back onto the paleozoic. Cotyothynchus was a very weird and very basal synapsid. Its huge torso that makes the animal look like its obese actually served to house huge intestines, as it fed on very hard to digest vegetation, and lots of it, not unlike modern ruminants that have chambered stomachs for better digestion. These guys had no natural predators.

Erythrosuchus
1770572413320.png 1770572424698.png 1770572489882.png 1770572501508.png
From a teeny tiny head to now a humongous head, Erythrosuchus was a massive archosauriform reptile that lived from early to middle triassic in South Africa. It was the absolute apex predator of its time, feeding on large dicynodonts such as Lystrosaurus and Kannemeyeria, but nothing really was safe from its jaws while its reign lasted. Also, bonus meme:
1770572762891.png

Jonkeria
1770572819864.png 1770572840585.png 1770572860971.png
Jonkeria was a huge rhino-sized dinocephalian. It was an omnivore, able to feed not only on water vegetation, but also hunted, ate carcasses and even scared predators away from their kills. It was semi-aquatic, living like a hippo and also had huge canine teeth. It would absolutely steamroll a human or any animal of its time for that matter. It lived and died during the middle permian and it was an absolute monster while it lasted.

Brachytrachelophan
1770573318850.png 1770573324440.png 1770573343415.png
Usually when we think of sauropods, we imagine animals with giant necks and small tails. But what if I told you there was a sauropod with a short neck and a long tail? Meet Brachytrachelophan.
Brachytrachelophan lived in late jurassic Argentina. It was a diplodocoid, hence the long whip-like tail, and yet had one of the shortest necks relative to body size of any sauropod. And as such, they were low browsers unlike other sauropods, filling the same niches as iguanodontians of its time. The only large predator of its environment was Pandoravenator, and while younger individuals would have been preyed upon, adults were nigh invulnerable to predation.

Vetulicolia
1770573723087.png 1770573729886.png 1770573737845.png 1770573808578.png 1770573825466.png
Vetulicolia is an extinct group of stem chordates. They lived from the ediacaran to the cambrian, being the olders creatures on the list thus far. They had many small openings along the side of their bodies that served as gills and likely filter fed with their mouths always open. And despite having such a simple body plan, they could vary wildly in shape and size. I recommend this video if you want to get an idea of how weird they are:

Sillosuchus
1770574279445.png 1770574288740.png
Yet another pseudosuchian that @Crocodylus Acutus will like, Sillosuchus was a HUGE poposaur, a group of pseudosuchians that had a very similar body plan to theropod dinosaurs. It lived in late triassic South America. For comparison, it was larger than an Allosaurus. It was an herbivore, feeding on young shoots ferns. It was larger than the top predator of its environment, Saurosuchus, and it was fast! So while young might have been preyed upon, adults were pretty safe. It was one of the largest terrestrial crocodylomorphs of all time, rivaling the size os many dinosaurs that would come in the later Jurassic and Cretaceous period.

Pontolis magnus
1770574710942.png 1770574727685.png 1770574768832.png 1770574791101.png
Pontolis was a massive genus of walrus that lived from the miocene to the pliocene. It was a huge predator that feed on everything from fish, desmostylians, and any animal it could latch its teeth on. It is about he same size as a modern elephant seal, and as such we can infer it lived a very similar life. Its skull was adapted for a much more predatory lifestle than the modern walrus, so it would not shy away from attacking large prey. It was a beast.
1770575039380.png
 
Last edited:
IMG_1020.jpeg
Young earth creationists use this Roman mosaic depicting the Nile as proof that dinosaurs lived along side man but I think it’s more interesting to think a population of enhydriodons survived into antiquity. More plausible since the beast is titled as “crocodile leopard”.
IMG_1021.jpeg
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1021.jpeg
    IMG_1021.jpeg
    405.7 KB · Views: 48
Triceratops was always my favorite. I always imagined them as a dinosaur equivalent of a buffalo, wanting to be left alone but very dangerous if antagonized.

They were some of the last dinosaurs left (youngest), which is neat.
 
HandsomeDan said:
Triceratops was always my favorite. I always imagined them as a dinosaur equivalent of a buffalo, wanting to be left alone but very dangerous if antagonized.

They were some of the last dinosaurs left (youngest), which is neat.
Click to expand...
love triceratops and ceratopsidaes too. for once, diversity was incredible
1770698489841.png

more triceratops sperging, but they had a ball and socket type joint on the base of the skull which helped support their huge heads but gave them a great range of motion. not sure if their frills got in the way though.
1770699091255.png 1770699108304.png
 
HandsomeDan said:
Triceratops was always my favorite. I always imagined them as a dinosaur equivalent of a buffalo, wanting to be left alone but very dangerous if antagonized.

They were some of the last dinosaurs left (youngest), which is neat.
Click to expand...
A peeve of mine is that herbivorous dinosaurs without obvious natural weapons, such as hadrosaurs and to a lesser extent sauropods are usually portrayed as ‘gentle giants’ in a lot of media like Jurassic Park. I imagine those dinosaurs could still absolutely fuck a large theropod up if they wanted to from sheer mass alone (sauropods in particular probably didn’t have any natural predators once fully grown).

Related, Shantugosaurus, the largest hadrosaur and one of the largest non-sauropod animals to ever exist:
IMG_7628.webp
IMG_7629.png
 
Extinct animals give me such a weird emotional feeling. The thylacine really makes me feel sad because it’s a cute dog cat and went extinct recently and it’s alleged to be spotted sometimes, usually all alone.
 
Speaking of Triceratops. As a kid, my favorite character in The Land Before Time was Cera, the bitchy one. Her character was what made me like those Dinosaurs.

Speaking of that film, as a film for kids, that one still holds up.

BigPeanut said:
Extinct animals give me such a weird emotional feeling. The thylacine really makes me feel sad because it’s a cute dog cat and went extinct recently and it’s alleged to be spotted sometimes, usually all alone.
Click to expand...

That reminds me. In my childhood, there was this really great ride that was all about dinosaurs (it got replaced by another ride which tbh still disappoints me.)

I cried once at the end of it, when it got to the dinosaur bones and the sad music. So I get that one.

By the way, it's not a dinosaur, but it's extinct.

This still gets me teary eyed. If you want to get your heart broken, read the story about that bird in that video that was the last of his kind.

 
Last edited:
General Patton said:
Speaking of Triceratops. As a kid, my favorite character in The Land Before Time was Cera, the bitchy one. Her character was what made me like those Dinosaurs.

Speaking of that film, as a film for kids, that one still holds up.



That reminds me. In my childhood, there was this really great ride that was all about dinosaurs (it got replaced by another ride which tbh still disappoints me.)

I cried once at the end of it, when it got to the dinosaur bones and the sad music. So I get that one.

By the way, it's not a dinosaur, but it's extinct.

This still gets me teary eyed. If you want to get your heart broken, read the story about that bird in that video that was the last of his kind.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nDRY0CmcYNU
Click to expand...
It really is heartbreaking and beautiful. The idea of anything going extinct to me is sad and terrible, I guess it’s why I’m a Nazi Chud.
 
I have several trilobite fossils. The things were cheap because of how common trilobites used to be.

(Also it could be nice if live trilobites were somehow Jurassic Park'd back into existence maybe...)
 
BigPeanut said:
It really is heartbreaking and beautiful. The idea of anything going extinct to me is sad and terrible, I guess it’s why I’m a Nazi Chud.
Click to expand...

The one of the bird in Hawaii that eventually died out in 1987 is heartbreaking. All the others died out, someone recorded the bird before it too passed on.

The saddest part about that one was the detail where that bird flew back when it heard the man playing back his own song.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom