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What is your favorite dinosaur?
Many of us were dinosaur kids (I assume), but I know that our understanding of dinos has changed a lot from my childhood: more feathers, warm-blooded, and the brontosaurus survived its deletion attempt! Land Before Time, Dinotopia, We're Back! a Dinosaur's Story, Dinosaurs, and Jurassic Park have been supplemented by Jurassic World, Velocipastor, and many dinosaur "documentaries".
So Tildarianitearinis, what is your favorite dinosaur?
(For purposes of this question dinosaurs will be inclusive of prehistoric archosaurs without pedantry. Aka pterosaurs count. )
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Spinosaurus - just think they look cool.
We should really bring back fins and sails on animals! We really got away from them. They do look cool!
it's a tie for me:
ankylosaurus - a walking tank with a giant flail-tail!
Quetzalcoatlus - the largest flying creature to ever have lived. It doesn't look like it should be able to fly with that giant head and beak, but it did, and that's just fantastically terrifying.
Highly relevant link for your amusement
Bravo. This is the content we need.
Hahahaha that was sick!
A classic and a big badass!
Always had a soft spot for brontosaurus. Maybe it's because I'm a tall fella.
I like that it's a survivor! They tried to get rid of it and it was like "naw I'm real... Real big!"
Oviraptor. I have an affinity for goofy looking things. I love corgis, I love weiner dogs, I just love unusual and silly things. Oviraptor is really silly, to me anyway.
A little guy with a funky beak to eat their eggs better. I get it!
They look fun. Probably the spirit animal of several of my geese.
I was always partial to Parasaurolophus as a kid! I liked the idea of having a trumpet-like instrument attached to the back of your head
They're so neat looking. If we do a real Jurassic Park we should do these guys
Team Parasaurolophus! I also thought they were cool, and felt extra smart that I could spell/pronounce the name. 😎
Stegosaurus. RIP Thag Simmons.
I miss when they had two brains but I do love spikes and plates!
A song I learned from my daughter's montessori preschool, to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it":
Stegosaurus carried plates upon his back, clack clack,
Stegosaurus carried plates upon his back, clack clack,
His brain was very small.
It was barely there at all.
Stegosaurus carried plates upon his back, clack clack,
Poor stego, being called dumb even in preschool
Pterodactyl, of course
The primary reason I included the archosaur comment :D
I fell in love with the Skybax in Dinotopia and always wanted to fly with one
Why can't you hear a Pterodactyl go to the bathroom?
Answer
Because the P is silent!
Team #velociraptor checking in.
The Deinonychus sized ones from Jurassic Park or the little ferocious guys?
The murder-chicken variety.
Nice!
I love how much more we know about social habits these days. Utahraptors were definitely nerd kid me's "real" velociraptors too
Troodon and ankylosaurus for me.
Ooh two classic but different styles of dinosaurs! I love a "little guy" like the Troodin and Ankylosaurus is an old timer!
Kinda a basic answer, but I just can't help loving the T-rex. Been my favorite since I was a small child. But, since playing Paleo Pines, I've had a real soft spot for the Coelophysis. They're just cute noodly little guys. Of course, a cute little guy who's 3 meters long and could easily eat me.
There's a reason the Rex means king! I think our understanding of them evolving over the last decades has only made them more interesting
And yes a cute little guy that can absolutely shred you is a delight
I have to go with Stegosaurus.
As I said above, classic spikes and plates!
I always thought the duck bills were cool.
They're pretty chill! I like them
Irritator! the best!
It's a cool dino but I always thought it got shafted by being named for someone else fucking up its skull. Poor dude.
Tied been stegosaurus and triceratops for me! I like them both. It's definitely because they're the ones I've seen the most lol.
Classics. I do love triceratops in particular between those two!
The bee hummingbird and others of its ilk.
I think it's incredibly cool that creatures evolve to fill every survivable ecological niche, and scale is one of the easiest ways to fit. When you think about how quickly humans selected wolves for sizes from Chihuahua to Great Dane, it's believable that hundreds of millions of years of natural selection resulted in everything from 70 metric ton Titanosaurs to 10 g hummingbirds.
I did say prehistoric archosaur! But I do agree I love much dinosaurs have adapted. Do you have a favorite tiny one from the past? Is it Oculudentavis khaungraae?
Occuludentavis khangraae is the prehistoric example I was thinking of.
TBH, as a kid, I wasn't a fan of the cold-blooded, scaly, all green-gray colored model for reptilian dinosaurs then current - Team Mammal all the way. Mongo would be appalled.
Now, we think of dinosaurs as feathered, fuzzy, colorful... and hummingbirds are so darn cute. And vicious for their size - have you ever been dive-bombed by those things?
I didn't know if you were just using the lil guy as an example or your actual fave. Tiny little guys are great!
I have not been divebombed by hummingbirds but bluejays do an excellent job at it themselves. Also Mongo is never actually appalled.
Give me pachycephalosaurus--it's a Dino with a hat!! Also
its whole body is a weaponlooks like recent research is debunking the headbutting theory in favor of side-butting or just being for display.They're still cool looking! I do like the headbutt imagery
I'm sure at least ONE individual used their entire body as a battering ram, and the others rolled their eyes and went, "please. You're embarassing us"
I used to be partial to Triceratops. But I also think that was more related to Power Rangers and thinking Billy the Blue Ranger was cool. His Dinozord was a triceratops.
These days, I think Archaeopteryx and the like are cool.
I think I had similar "Blue Power Ranger" feelings. But I love our flying archosaurs
For me, it's the Ankylosaurus and Ankylosaurs in general.
Classic club and spike wielders!
Maiasaura! We lived in Montana about the time they were discovered, and got to see Jack Horner himself talk about the good mother lizard. Little kidlet me was super excited about it, and my Mom, who also loved dinosaurs, thought it was great that proof of maternal behavior was being recognized. It's now the state dinosaur, too.
https://dinosaurlady.com/2024/02/08/maiasaura-the-good-mother-lizard/
Mama-saurus, the duck billed dino! I think it's great how childhood memories stick with us!
Plesiosaur! I don't have a specific reason, I just always really liked them for some reason. When we did reports on dinosaurs in high school I was so nervous someone would pick it before my turn to choose, but was surprised that none of my classmates seemed to know what it was.
I love plesiosaurs. They just seem happy to be here and I'm sure that's jus drawings but I did always like the idea that Nessie was bopping around living her best post-prehistoric life
I share that head canon about Nessie being a plesiosaur
The Japanese have every cute thing, and one of their cute franchise called sumikko gurashi (wiki) that has plesiosaur main character whose mom is sort of their world's version of Nessie / dinosaur:
Aww that's cute. I think it's hilarious though that there's all these animals and a pork cutlet.
(I see the other odder characters too, they're cute! Kawaii?)
Cutlet and uneaten shrimp tail :D and weeds who dreams of being a wedding bouquet too. They're all misfits or rejects or having to live in a corner somehow in their own way
My childhood was spent mainly hanging out in my uncles' room, and they were both bought a lot of manga, so, my favourite has and will always be a plesiosaur, specifically, Nobita's Pii-suke, who was a Futabasaurus
DNAF, plesiosaurs are not part of the archosaurs clade, but I'll assume the "ancient Reptilia class animal" spirit of your post rather than be precise here :)
Yes, I'll allow it, I was insufficiently inclusive and I like plesiosaurs too!
The one I loved as a kid was Compsognathus, and I haven't devoted enough time to thinking about dinosaurs (other than when I played Ark) to change that decision. Learning that they're a bit bigger than we expected, and that the chicken-sized one that we knew of is likely a juvenile, also doesn't change that decision.
Ark doesn't count because my opinions were formed based on manmade power scaling in a video game.
I love ambitious toothy little guys, even when they're less little than expected
Wasn't much of a dinosaur kid to be honest, but Denver seemed like a pretty stand up lizard.
https://youtu.be/o0pMUi8mm18
I can't believe you beat me to this joke.
Oooooh, another great question from Fae!
My go-to would probably be triceratops, but for a more obscure reference I will say Troodon. I vividly recall a documentary I saw on the Discovery channel way back when it was amazing (2008 maybe?) that went into great detail about their hypothesized intelligence based on evidence of brain cavity size and the apparently social locations of various fossil groupings. The Wikipedia page seems to cover very little of this so maybe it's been discredited since. But that documentary ended with a fascinating sci fi take of how troodon might've evolved into a reptilian civilization if they hadn't been blown up via asteroid. I've always remembered them as 'the smart dinos' since and really had a soft spot for them.
DNAF working overtime in this thread!
I feel like I’m gonna lose some friend for this: Liopleurodon. Ok not for that, but for my reason – Charlie the unicorn :x
DNAF?
We did allow the plesiosaur exception so pliosaurs must count too. Even if this involves a candy mountain.
I respect them but I do prefer the longer neck.
DefinitelyNotAFae == DNAF (quicker to type on mobile xD)
Ah, duh, sorry
Mine has always been Diplodocus since I was a kid. I think it started because of a book I had as a kid but I also just think the name is super cool and it's just so dinosaur.
I love the big ones! I agree that they hit that very archetypal dinosauryness.
Deinonychus, but not because of the dinosaur it is. My friend in elementary school always wanted to "play dinosaurs' and to him, Deinonychus was the more enormous version of the Jurassic Park Velociraptor.
Years later, I asked him about it and he totally shrugged it off as a wimp with feathers.
Your friend is short sighted. We had a kids cassette tape of dinosaur songs and Dienonychus got his own, highlighting his "terrible claw"
Actually, he was near sighted. Poor Timmy.
He was a Do-you-think-he-saurus?
More like a know-it-all-a-saurus. The girls "dyd-not-a-kiss" poor, insufferable Timmy.
Metaphorically, veto powers in the European Union.
Hey now, Archosaur
Play nice in the fun thread please
Alright, alright. Angela Merkel then.
ಠ_ʖಠ
Honestly the thing I hate the most about making "fun" threads and why I do them less is the insistence on "not playing the game". Like if you don't want to, just don't? Anyway, marking the thread off topic and ending here.