No paleontology thread? Come on!Image:https://www.sciencealert.com/dinosaur-footprints-revealed-in-texas-are-among-the-longest-trails-ever-found
>>16234033How do paleontologists estimate the weight of dinosaurs?
>>16234932Well, they use two main approaches: one is using living animals as reference for density estimates and volumetric models, and the other is to use the fossil bone dimensions and their inner structures to estimate the load the bones carried also based in what we see in living animals.
>>16235125Cool. I was just wondering because ostriches are surprisingly lightweight for their size, so could the bigger dinos also be lighter than estimated
>>16235206Yes, it seems that most, if not all, saurischian dinosaurs had their bones filled with air sacs much like birds do. Hollow bones with a resistant outer layer, lightweight and strong.
bump
Roar! Or did they? Does any bird roar? Lol
>>16237487Some birds do lizard-like screeching and hissing
>>16237570Yes, swans hiss, for example. But even accounting for the smaller size of birds, nothing quite sounds like the silly guttural roars we see in films like Jurassic Park.
reptiles that looked like dolphins and occupied the same niches... it is hard to even imagine such an animal
>>16234033Why did trilobites go extinct?
>>16237487LolA little single of "bones"
>>16238414>Why did trilobites go extinct?Trilobites went extinct at the Permian - Triassic extinction, and we think it was all the Siberian Traps volcanism. First it slowly induced global cooling from the huge amount of volcanic ash it threw up into the atmosphere, and most life adapted to that. Then the volcanic activity died off somewhat quickly and once the volcanic soot settled down, there was mostly CO2 left in the atmosphere and sudden global warming followed suit, nuking most of life. (ultra-short version)
>>16238843>A little single of "bones"Yes, sometimes you only find residual specimens. You find what you can, not what you want.
>>16239072A lot of other species survived, it is weird that trilobites, having survived for so long, could not handle the P-T extinction. There has to be something more to it.
>>16239219>A lot of other species survivedover 90% of marine species perished, so it's not the trilobites vanishing that is unusual, it's the ones who made it through that were the exceptions.
>>16239076>sometimes you only find residual specimensI'm actually going to alter my statement to:>most often you only find residual specimensIt's actually rare to find whole large creatures fossilized. This is why if a fossil is a popular type of animal, and the find is extraordinarily complete, it can reach absurd prices, like Stan the T-Rex did in 2020, which sold for 31.8M USD at an auction.
>>16237487Why are the girls legs spread?
>>16239076From a engineer standpoint, that neck couldn't work.
>>16238367>It is hard to even imagine such an animal>Nigga never saw a penguin in his life
>>16240399>>Nigga never saw a penguin in his lifeLol, true, penguins are quite amazing as well. Imagine if penguins had never survived and we found their fossils. They'd be pretty hard to visualize as well.
>>16240355>From a engineer standpoint, that neck couldn't work.Yes, large sauropod necks are a source of much debate in regards to their range of motion.Their cervicale vertebrae had ball-and-socket joints though, so their discs would not slide past one another, and so they were mechanically engaged in sequence.Pic: Representative mid-cervical vertebra of Giraffatitan brancai, articulating with its neighbours.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258351326_The_Effect_of_Intervertebral_Cartilage_on_Neutral_Posture_and_Range_of_Motion_in_the_Necks_of_Sauropod_Dinosaurs
>>16240595>Giraffatitan brancaihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffatitan
>>16237487>>16237763Cassowaries dohttps://youtu.be/fQ7Px-1J1ag?si=7bE2CcX2gg_09SRr
>>16240815Woah, nice call! Thanks!Still, those Jurassic Park-like grandstanding roars, like a lion would, just don't seem very bird-like. Even the motions simulated look very mammal-like.
>>16240852Even a cassowary doesn't roar with fluid motions like a mammal would. Like hat I'd expect from a bird doing a call, it just takes a stiff position and makes the noise:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wB3BKHmxZ4
>>16240860compare:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG2607R_ccY
>>16240594Penguins really did not survive.
>>16242140R.I.P. Great Auk
Important thread is important.Bump
how do dinosaur soft tissues survive tens of millions of years of environmental exposure, including thermal cycles, radiation, and countless earthquakes?
>>16242399>how do dinosaur soft tissues survive tens of millions of years of environmental exposure, including thermal cycles, radiation, and countless earthquakes?For all the reasons you mentioned, dinosaur "mummies" and soft tissues are extremely rare finds.Those soft tissues require unusual preservation conditions, like rapid burial to protect remains from scavengers, low oxygen environments to slow decay, and dry or arid climates to minimize bacterial activity. Additionally, mineral-rich water can facilitate fossilization by replacing organic material with minerals.
>>16234033>Dinosaur>Deinos+Sauros (Terror-Lizard)>Plot Twist: It's a chicken! Human folly.
bamp
Any new info on early evolution of vertebrates?
>>16239076>>16240355>>16240811Are those necks not just meant to be held horizontally and swayed left to right to allow for grazing of a large area of grass, with the body being moved less?
>>16244569>Are those necks not just meant to be held horizontally and swayed left to right to allow for grazing of a large area of grass, with the body being moved less?The main hypothesis is that that they moved as little as possible, and ate as much as possible. They moved a bit and parked for feeding, and so forth. It seems too difficult to definitely tell if they all managed to hold their necks horizontally, being that there are countless sauropod species, so who knows exactly what each one did.Some of them had necks that truly border on the nonsensical, like mamenchisaurus/ Then you have the absurd giant titanosaurs that simply should not exit, but we keep finding their fossils. The crazy thing is, that as large as they are, probabilistically speaking, we're finding the average sized individuals, meaning that the exceptionally large and rare specimens were large beyond comprehension. Even with hollow bones and air sacks and what not, it's just insane biology.We don't know if they held their necks horizontal, we don't know if they held their necks vertical, but then again, what would the purpose be of such long necks if the best they could do is act like a lazy snake with a fat body, right? It's obvious that natural selection would favor those who did manage to lift up their heads and spot danger from further away. And the dentition is so varied, it's clear that different species specialized in different foliage types, and vegetation height. Camarasaurus did not eat the same thing as a diplodocus did, nor a nigersaurus, etcOf all the dinosaurs, mega sauropods are the most baffling to me. We need to find a fossilized heart or something like that to shed some light on the whole mystery.image sauce:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272152656_Osteology_paleobiology_and_relationships_of_the_sauropod_dinosaur_Sauroposeidon
>>16244438>Any new info on early evolution of vertebrates?That is very specific, I don't follow that niche topic. Is that an area of your interest?I asked an AI bot, here's what it said
>>16238367>WTF IS THAT?!People must have freaked out when they first dug this thing up
>>16245248>People must have freaked out when they first dug this thing upI know, I mean, what's the most advanced aquatic reptiles we have? salt water crocodiles? Marine snakes?Now imagine digging up a reptile as sleek as a dolphin! Viviparous too!Look at this photo and try to think "those are reptiles"...Unreal
>>16234033What were some INSANELY ABUNDANT animals historically presented in the fossil record that are now just either completely irrelevant or otherwise extinct? Like, organisms that went from *total global saturation* levels to almost zero or zero.
>>16245288>What were some INSANELY ABUNDANT animals historically presented in the fossil record that are now just either completely irrelevant or otherwise extinct?Ammonites are a very common type of fossil, so much so that they're an easy Index Fossil. They all died at the end of the Cretaceous.Trilobites are also quite common before the end of the Permian.And dinosaurs, I mean, most of the decent-sized animals found in the Jurassic and Triassic is a dinosaur. It was the age of dinosaurs, so there are countless variations of dinosaurs.Here's a nice trilobite fossil from the Henryhouse Formation, Oklahoma.
>>16245278They probably thought dinosaur fossils were from the nephilim
>>16245650Yep, and "dragons" in China.But there were fair attempts at reasonable explanations: Herodotus and Xenophanes both observed aquatic fossils and proposed that the land where they were was once underwater.
I was reading about the different T-Rex specimens, especially the ones with given names, it's so cool. The stories of how they were discovered, how difficult some were to dig up and move our of the field ("Scotty" took almost 20 years to be dug out!) And they each have their own individual pathologies, and injuries, etc, fascinating to imagine the life adventures and moments of those animals.Imagine you get to name your own amazing T-Rex discovery, how awesome of a feeling would that be?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specimens_of_TyrannosaurusThis one is "Black Beauty", what a great "eath pose" mount, spectacular.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQRC1AA7tBc
WHERE ARE THE CREATIONISTS AND THEIR DOUBTS? Serious question.
>>16234033>PaleontologyThis is more of a paleo-ecology question, but how exactly "deprived" or "vacant" is our current ecosystem both in terms of recent Pleistocene & human-induced extinctions, but maybe also compared to previous periods of life. Like, are we doing okay? Or has there truly been just a massive portion of the biosphere fuckin' scooped out and entire levels of the pyramid just gone? I ask this question because I recently got really into extinct elephants and I'm just enthralled, amazed, and alarmed, both by their *iconic character designs* but also the fact that all but 2 species are basically extinct. We went from over a dozen species of elephant across several continents, to 2 on 2. That has to have had an impact.
>>16246350>to 2 on 23 on 2, there are two african species:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_bush_elephanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_forest_elephantIn regards to what else you asked, I'm not sure, but we can try and dig into that tomorrow. It is my bedtime now. ttylpic unrelated
>>16246350Most stuff that has ever lived is dead, there are probably millions or billions of evolutionary dead ends we'll never find the fossils of or are too closely related to tell without a complete skeleton which we'll never find. I think it's the way of the world, right now there are a few niches covered very well, and maybe in the future there will be more or less niches covered well by a few or broadly by many. Also, consider microscopic life. There is still probably more extinct species than are around today, but there's also probably an uncountable number of species alive today that we may never know or discover before they're gone, replaced. I don't think life will die off on earth as a whole until the sun dies off, so we have time to find more, new, and interesting species.
>>16246350>how exactly "deprived" or "vacant" is our current ecosystem both in terms of recent Pleistocene & human-induced extinctionsOK, this in not my specialty, but I do see ocasional studies coming out on this matter. By doing some perusing online, it seems that our ecosystem has taken a big hit due to extinctions in the recent past and human actions. We've lost big animals like mammoths and saber-toothed cats, partly due to how efficiently we learned how to hunt them and we expanded our territory, and that changed how ecosystems worked and left holes in the ecosystem that are hard to fill. Add in stuff like continuous habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change caused by humans, and you've got a real mess on your hands. Ecosystems are struggling with less variety and stability, which isn't great news for the planet.I'm really looking forward to those revival/cloning programs of extinct Pleistocene species, but I'm not sure the current habitats can support such large animals anymore since we have usurped so much landscape for agricultural, cattle grazing, hunting, logging, etc. Like, a saber-toothed cat population, to be viable would, probably need a huge natural range, which there simply isn't anymore. Look at the tiger, it's barely hanging on.There simply can't be a proper fauna restauration until the major invasive species is removed from the habitat, and that's us, unfortunately.
>>16247022>I'm really looking forward to those revival/cloning programs of extinct Pleistocene species, but I'm not sure the current habitats can support such large animals anymore since we have usurped so much landscape for agricultural, cattle grazing, hunting, logging, etc. Like, a saber-toothed cat population, to be viable would, probably need a huge natural range, which there simply isn't anymore.For whatever reason when I read that I instantly thought of the enclosed "nature preserve" in Netherlands, "Oostvaardersplassen". The whole park is 56 square km, possesses a large body of water that attracts a number of migratory birds, but is most famous for its' selection of large European herbivores: large herds of wisent, heck cattle, konik horses, and red & roe deer, all live in the area and maintain the long grassy, reedy, environment that the birds love.The problem though is the whole area is completely enclosed; multiple attempts to connect it to outside land/other national parks have failed miserably, and with no predators in the 'preserve' the only thing controlling the herbivores is periodic famines. Perhaps every 7 years the animals proliferate to such number (thousands of animals) and successfully graze most of the reserve down until it looks like a football field - culminating in them slowly starving to death come winter. I'm a big fan of rewilding myself, but unless countries can actually devote large, vacant, connected, parcels of land for animals to exist in, you're going to get situations like that. Where you're really only making a fake 'safari parks' for people to gawk at deliberately managed animals.
>>16247167yes, everything you said, yes.Not to mention, due to the Ten Percent Law, to sustain one carnivore, you'd need ten herbivores on average. and to sustain each of those herbivores, you'd need an area with ten times the amount of their body mass in plant mass. That's how energy inefficiently "scales" down as you move up in the trophic levels.Furthermore, all those areas would have to be connected and continuous, and not, for example, crisscrossed by freeways and their fences all along their lengths, which effectively retail the landscape and create isolated "pockets" of "nature" between them, impeding animal populations from breeding across large distances to avoiding genetic stagnation.So to truly maintain a balanced Pleistocene fauna, and avoid a "zoo" situation... well, we'd have to go back to the way things were before we came along with spears in our hands.pic: the historical and present day range of lions
>>16246033>"Black Beauty"Don't you mean Black Plaster?
>>16247192>Don't you mean Black Plaster?I don't know how much of the mount itself is a cast, but the original is at the museum. You can see that the skull on the mount is a cast, clearly. Here is the original skull, and it still has lots of rock matrix in it. Notice that the skull was not found complete, and so it also has some synthetic parts placed in to account for the bones that simply were not found in the dig, like the left lower mandible bone that has an obvious different texture (you find what you find, not what you wish you'd find):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm9cshDA5QAThere are several reasons why the original fossils are not always mounted on the displays, this short video explains:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhh8fqfqSTwAdditionally, this is all mentioned in the exhibits, they usually say what is a replica or not, and what parts are replicas or not.
>>16247218>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhh8fqfqSTw [Embed]lol, the size of that gastralia on that t-rex... holy shit
>>16247167>multiple attempts to connect it to outside land/other national parks have failed miserablyWhat exactly was the problem?Couldn't acquire the land corridors? Incompatibility of the other national parks?Cost?Major human infrastructure in the way, cities, motorways, canals?Some weird political objection?The animals wouldn't migrate through a narrow neck?
>>16247279Who knows, too many countries, too many laws, too many freeways, too many farms in the way, etc
>>16239076>>16244633With a massive neck like that I fail to see how the fucking thing could stand upright without tipping over. The tail must have been about as equally massive to act as a counterweight.Even if you add air sacks you still have to have a lot of muscle there just to hold it up. I dare you make a model that that doesn't tip the fuck over without adding a shit load of mass to the tail.
>>16247308Great points points you made!Now you understand why this is leading-edge paleontology!Well, from what I know, it seems that the neck vertebrae were much more pneumatized than the tail vertebrae, so they necks were evolved for lightness, mobility and flexibility, and that minimized the leveraging effect.IMHO, think there was also not much need for a heavy tail since the body itself was so bulky and packed stuffed with food, and that combined with hollow bones in their necks already did the job. It's almost as if their tails were there to counter-resonance the motion of their necks.Their bodies were heavy, their leg bones are not pneumatized, they are massive, like pillars, these animals spent their time eating, and they did not chew, to they stripped and swallowed, repeatedly, and all those tons of plant matter went into the huge guts where it fermented. Their skulls were packed full or rows of teeth, the tooth replacement rates were very high, so much was the constant wear from the constant plant biting. I think they had a miserable existence, to be frank, always hungry and never content.Obviously, you can keep asking questions like we all do, but eventually you'll bump into the answer we cannot avoid: we don't know yet.There are some very good lectures on this stuff if you are interested, here is a very recent one, I have timestamped it past the lengthy introduction, straight on to the good stuff:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty-ngnGT0ls&t=428s
>>16247279>What exactly was the problem?It's a lot of this: >>16247287I'm just quoting professor Wikipedia, but to be more specific the plan was to build several wildlife corridors connecting Oostvaardersplassen to Germany and in turn expanding by the park by an additional 150 square kilometers. Pic related was the initial expansion planned in 2009(?) the dotted area - that whole bit was going to be the new new wildlife corridor which would connect it to the Horsterwold park at the bottom. This isn't in Wikipedia, but to get further into detail: the whole project was supposed to be complete by 2014, but electoral changes happening in Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, shifted from a mostly cooperative, ambitious, environmentally-invested governments, to a mixture of uncooperative conservatist ones that couldn't decide or agree upon anything. (Ironically) Infinitely more rules, stipulations, began to spring up - disproval from farmers, conservationists, and the public as everybody fucking himmed and hawed and second guessed every little detail. The whole thing eventually just not happening. Granted, none of this would have fixed the parks inherit lack of carnivores. So while it would have been nice to have more preserve land, more animals, they're really only "making the park bigger" and kicking the initial problem down the road a bit.
>>16248336>This isn't in WikipediaNot to derail the paleo thread, but something that important should be on there., someone needs to contribute that content.
>>16247167>>16248336The other thing I'll also, weirdly and depressingly reiterate, is that I can't overstate the problem of acquiring large tracts of undisturbed land in places like Europe that effectively make actual rewilding and conservation efforts functionally impossible. The overwhelming majority of re-wilding success stories across the European union have been for large placid herbivores (wild cattle, beavers, muxoxen), generalists (wild boar), and very small discreet carnivores (lynx), and this isn't a coincidence. It's a crowded, metropolitan, heavily urbanized, place with very little meaningful land for honest conservation efforts. It's kind of the idea that one of the biggest success stories in European conservation is the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone; because despite how radioactive it is it's also 2,600 square kilometers of undisturbed land housing healthy populations of horses, wisent, boar, bear, and wolves. Somebody can feel free to correct me, but the largest wildlife preserve in the UK is the Cairngorm National Park, Scotland (292 square kilometers), and the largest wildlife preserve in the United States is Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska (*53,320.57* square kilometers). >>16247022>but I'm not sure the current habitats can support such large animals anymore since we have usurped so much landscape for agricultural, cattle grazing, hunting, logging, etc. Like, a saber-toothed cat population, to be viable would, probably need a huge natural range, which there simply isn't anymore. Look at the tiger, it's barely hanging on.So in a way 'Pleistoscene' rewilding may very well be the more practical option than contemporary rewilding: given the sheer amount of unused, unairable, thinly populated, functional commercially useless, land available in places like Alaska, Russia, and the Canadian Northern Territories. I wouldn't even wait for Mammoths - my two top picks are Saiga Antelope & Bactrian Camels.
>>16247175>>>/wsg/5596207
>>16248427Yeah this, basically you have to set aside a well fenced and highly protected area the size of Belgium to make it viable as any self sustaining ecosystem. Perhaps we will still get there if there is some unfortunates confluence between a disease with the lethality of the Black Death, World War 3, and a small asteroid strike.On topic. Trilobites man, I love those little guys. As a kid I remember seeing pictures of their fossils and feeling immensely sad at their deaths, yet also wondrous that there was there were impressions of a creature that lived such a near incomprehensible time ago, that one time it crawled around doing Trilobite things and thinking Trilobite thoughts, in a world that was as real as the one we live in today. Still blows my mind twenty years later. Wish I could touch such a specimen and ponder deeply upon the nature of time and existence.
>>16234033So let me get this straightThis was a river bed both today and 113 million years ago?
>>16248743>This was a river bedIt depends, let's look it up:>Eastward-dipping limestones, sandstones, and mudstones of the Glen Rose Formation were deposited during the early Cretaceous Period approximately 113 million years ago along the shorelines of an ancient sea, and form the geological setting for the park area.These were probably lagoon deposits, limey muds, limey sands, muds, etc.
>>16248734kek, I lulled, thanks
>>16248336>This isn't in Wikipediais this it?:>The "Ecological Main Structure" plan proposes connections between nature reserves in the Netherlands, calling for a corridor to be created toward nearby Horsterwold [nl]. The resulting network, called Oostvaardersland (text continues)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oostvaardersplassen
>>16247218>the skullwhen you realize that t-rex had stereoscopic vision, and a brain about 40 times the volume of the smartest living crows today... fucking crazy
any proof that dinosaurs are real?I've found a lot of fossils but no dinosaurs yet.methinks they are made up by darwin
calling all trilobite fans, gather around!
>>16249374>any proof that dinosaurs are real?Yes, plenty, but what kind of proof would satisfy your skepticism?>I've found a lot of fossils but no dinosaurs yet.Well, you have to look in the right place, as explained in our previous thread:https://warosu.org/sci/thread/16220066
>>16249382I would need to find a complete dinosaur skeleton myself in a place that nobody told me to look or at least a skull
>>16249386Haha! I like your level of hardcore. Well, that is extremely unlikely to find, not because it's hard to find dinosaur bones, that is relatively possible to do in the exact areas where they tend to be found, but because a complete and perfectly articulated dinosaur skeleton, well... that might be worth a few million dollars, depending on the rarity of the dinosaur and the popularity of the dinosaur type, if you ever get that lucky. However, you can try in the places and in the ways mentioned in the other thread.I myself have not found a whole bone, but I have personally found small dinosaur bone fragments, and I have discovered a dinosaur track that no one had ever found. There's a paper to be published on that trackway.dinosaur footprints are much easier to find than bones, they're more common.
>>16249421you have to understand my skepticism there has been a shill going around trying to direct people to this thread
>>16249429>you have to understand my skepticismI understand, everyone has their own personal benchmark of logical satisfaction to meet.
>>16249374>dinosaursWhy dinosaurs specifically? There are so many incredible extinct animals other than dinosaurs.
>>16249374>I've found a lot of fossilsOkay, and do you not believe in fossilization (taphonomy)? Or in evolution at all, or just dinosaurs?
>>16249493I'm undecidedfurther evidence must be gathered
>>16249493I forgot the agnostic option: maybe you're just unsure either way and need more evidence, as you said yourself.
>>16249497gotcha, thanks for the answer:>>16249500
>>16249386>>16249421There is a possible way that you might do this: some paleo digs accept volunteers. Even though you'd likely not be the one to stumble upon the first fossil, you'd be right there cracking open and cleaning that virgin rock on location, watching the bones emerge from the rock before your very eyes.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqIbjlLIac8
>>16249667I wish I had a video I can't find now, it was longer and showed them really getting into the rock with jackhammers and all that, and the bones getting exposed and the rock blocks tumbled off, so cool
>>16249374If they were made up, they would have to have been made up long before Darwin. As other anons said, there are places you can go to watch fossils being dug up in real time. It'll be rather boring 99% of the time, though. There are also places you can go where there are massive fossil beds, again mostly stuff that isn't that interesting most of the time. You can find a lot of shells from sea creatures on flood plains and stuff, which aren't dinosaurs but are still evidence of fossils existing.
>Paleoecology One of the things I'm really fascinated by during Dinosaur Times (specifically the late Cretaceous) was the aggressive and successive amount of "niche-partitioning" going on with such massive herbivores. By that I mean lots of very large herbivores co-existing, co-grazing, in the environment because of varying morphology in their breaks or teeth, or both, allowing them to specialize and expand their grazing habits without interfering or competing too much with each other. We can still see this phenomena happen in Africa where you have: elephants, rhinos, buffalo, antelope, wildebeest, all eating different kinds of vegetation and forming those really impressive & photogenic mixed-herds. But then the animal density of the serengeti I think is 30 animals per km2, whereas dig sites in Alberta & Montana suggest a herbivore density of as much as 70 animals per km2 during the Cretaceous - not even small or medium sized herbivores, but specifically dozens of species & subspecies of very large Hadrosaurs and Ceratopsians.We complain a lot about emissions from animals today, but imagine all the methane farts and enormous piles of herbivore dung released by so such large herds of herbivores roamin' around wild n' free.Some lectures on this subject by the Royal Tyrell Museum: -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OTY1GGzUeE&t=2s&ab_channel=RoyalTyrrellMuseumofPalaeontology-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk-zLUFfZ80&ab_channel=RoyalTyrrellMuseumofPalaeontology
>>16249844>lots of very large herbivores co-existing, co-grazing, in the environment because of varying morphology in their breaks or teeth, or both, allowing them to specialize and expand their grazing habits without interfering or competing too much with each other.Yes, I am particularly intrigued how so many large sauropods could be sustained, while ravaging the canopies of so many trees. Maybe the tree species were specifically evolved to be extremely fast growers, as eucalyptus trees are? Perhaps our estimates of the adult sauropod populations are off? What if the truly large specimens were extremely rare and far apart, elderly members? Whereas the adult animals became sexually viable at a much younger age and therefore did not actually pressure the fauna as much? But, the thing is, very large sauropod footprints are not that uncommon. Here in Portugal, for example, at the Pegadas de Dinossáurios da Serra de Aire Natural Monument, all the long trackways consist of huge footprints, and there's several trackways. Some pes footprints are nearly a meter wide. Maybe this was a gathering location for mating, who knows, but it wasn't a one-off individual, there was a community of huge being walking about.>suggest a herbivore density of as much as 70 animals per km2 during the Cretaceous - not even small or medium sized herbivores, but specifically dozens of species & subspecies of very large Hadrosaurs and Ceratopsians.Yes, like the African savannah on steroids, really extraordinary>imagine all the methane farts and enormous piles of herbivore dung released by so such large herds of herbivores roamin' around wild n' free.lol, good point!>Some lectures on this subject by the Royal Tyrell MuseumOh, fuck yes, I added to my long list! thanks!pic: sauropod trackway at the mentioned location, including a clear shot of a manus print clearly showing an inwards-recurved claw print on digit #1, and "toe" prints. I love this shit, I have many more shots, lol
>>16249917another one, there's the claw mark.
Bumpo
>>16250499>>16245311>>16239072>>16246370>>16249375>Real vs. Fake Trilobite Fossils and How to Tell the Differencehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeN3QaAFZbk
>>16249917>I am particularly intrigued how so many large sauropods could be sustained, while ravaging the canopies of so many trees. Maybe the tree species were specifically evolved to be extremely fast growers, as eucalyptus trees are?I subscribe to the belief that it was a mixture of increase plant growth-rates due to environmental conditions (warmer and more atmospheric carbon dioxide, at least four times more than our current atmosphere), and pic related - specialization and variance in different head shape and tooth shape allowing them to decimate and mow down really anything. Diplodocus a mixed grazer plucking plants and stripping branches, brachiosaurus and camarasaurus perhaps more specialized browsers (?even fruit eaters?). I haven't looked into it, but I'm sure their teeth must show wear from specific processes that would provide some context or clues. I know Camarasaurus' teeth often look pretty pummeled, but is that from biting down on bark? Seed pits?
>>16251522>and pic relatedyes, absolutely.I still need to watch those two videos.I'm currently pushing through this one since I'm about to head to Morocco next week.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD9dLCEE_Ek
>>16249375Can someone explain how fossils can be 3d like this?Also why do they have wacky waving flailing arms
>>16249917>Yes, I am particularly intrigued how so many large sauropods could be sustained, while ravaging the canopies of so many trees. CO2. Plant food. I forget to what degree, but it was far greater in the atmosphere in the Mesozoic compared to today.
>>16251964Iirc the Carboniferous was 1000 ppm where we're at about 300-ish(?)It was also the hottest known period on earth outside of formation.
>>16251964Geologist here. Useless information. During the Eocene thermal maximum the ice caps were gone and the tropics were an unlivable dead zone. The soils we have from that period show an anoxic environment, meaning all photosynthesis had stopped in the tropics.Like seriously man, you can't use such a dumb retarded argument. "Like, derp, didn't you know it was hotter before? We'll be fine" Yeah, shit died all over the planet, a full 40% of livable space fucking died.
>>16252014Did I say that the temperature mattered, Mr. Geologist Here?
>>16252024>CO2 is good because plant foodNo. The implication is there and I've heard that argument too many times to let it pass. It is a very narrow argument to state that more CO2 is helpful for producing more food. It is not.
Why do creationist prefer to keep making repeated threads about the "flaws" and "lies" of Darwinism and evolution, forcing us to address the same bullshit and cherry-picking, over and over again, instead of actually coming to talk to us directly, right here, in the thread that directly deals with the physical evidence for the immense age of life, and its progressive transformation over time?Cowards.
>>16251951>Can someone explain how fossils can be 3d like this?They can be like so if the sediments hardened into minerals (diagenesis) before the fossil got squished by the overburden pressure, and the geologic processes that followed that mineralization also did not compress and deform the fossil (shearing), though tectonic processes, for example. Some fossils not only get compressed, they also get completely deformed. Pic related, and also here:>>16239072image suace:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352837183_Giant_Trilobites_and_Other_Middle_Ordovician_Invertebrate_Fossils_from_the_Arouca_UNESCO_Global_Geopark_Portugal>Also why do they have wacky waving flailing armsThat much I don't know, it's just how the species evolved, for whatever reason, but it sure is good-looking to me. That specimen costs about $3800. Very rare.
>>16252014Who cares what happens in the tropics? Shithole territory imo
>>16252370Because they're glownigger disinfo agents. They only post in threads they start.
>>16252378>That specimen costs about $3800.$3900, apologieshttps://instonefossils.com/products/rare-spiny-heliopeltis-johnsoni-trilobite-devonian-morocco
>>16252378Might as well add, that the fossil in the center there is the largest trilobite ever found. I went to see it January, pic related. It's huge.Imagine just how much any world-class natural history museum would pay for that. A true fortune, I'm sure.
>>16252378>chinaman in the pictureCan't make this up.
>>16252137>The implication is thereIt’s not. But yes. CO2 is directly beneficial to plants. The earth was once covered in a gigantic forest of sequoias/redwoods (I’m simplifying, of course). Thus the diversity of supermassive herbivores. Was it hot as shit? Sure. I love paleontology and don’t really give a shit any particular modern issue, Mr. Geologist Here. Or is it “Doctor”?
>>16252447This is the second largest ever, huge.I tried getting as close to it as possible to avoid forced perspective. My hand is touching the slate, so you can see how large it is.
>>16252527check it out:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyRphOG05gA
>>16252378>and the geologic processes that followed that mineralization also did not compress and deform the fossilCool, thank you
>>16234033I live in Bermuda. I’ve gotten into studying and recording the local formations and fossils that I’ve found along different sections of the shoreline. Since it’s a relatively young island (~1 million year old marine limestone atoll sitting on top of a ~50 million year old shield volcano) we don’t have much in the way of fossils, but there are a few interesting ones that I find every now and then. This is a fossilized brain coral that grew about 200,000 years ago, during the latter half of the Pleistocene. It’s not anything mind blowing, but it’s a cool way to gauge prehistoric sea levels. This coral was about 2.5 meters/ 8 feet higher than present day sea level.
>>16253342Here’s a better close up.
>>16253346Looks very cool, is that texture in the rock from the coral, or is it present outside of the coral and I just can't see it?The surrounding rock looks rough but doesn't have the same lined pattern.
Geologist here. Wanted to become a vertebrate paleontologist up until the end of college when I realized there’s no jobs and even then they barely make money (because it’s a hobby and not really useful). Did undergrad research and internships in the field. If that pic is in Glen Rose, TX I went there for a field trip too
>>16253755>Geologist here. Wanted to become a vertebrate paleontologistsame, same. I'm tired of excuses though, it's been too long thinking about what might have happened. I'm going to find out. I'm going back for a paleontology masters now.
>>16253346very cool, look at that. All those years waiting for you to find it.
Bumping/Participating in the thread with some trivia. >>16246350>>16247022>>16247167One of the, perhaps more valid, talking points in favor of Pleistocene re-wilding is the issue a number of fruit-bearing trees in North America that 'suffer' from something called "megafaunal dispersal syndrome". Megafaunal dispersal syndrome is a type of evolutionary anachronism - where an organism has evolved a specific trait due to a unique relationship it had with a now extinct animal - in the case of these fruit-bearing trees they evolved very large, pulpy, fruit with sizable (sometimes extremely bitter or even poisonous) seeds that are meant to be swallowed whole despite the fact they can be the size of a golf ball, and then shat out somewhere else. Avocados and peaches are both a common example of "megafruits" we're familiar with. With that in mind, North Americas hosts a number of fruiting trees that have become progressively niche due to this exact problem stifling their ability to reproduce (and lack of commercial appeal): pawpaw, native gourds, joshua tree yucca, and kentucky coffeetree. Ironically, cattle & horses have been picking up a bit of the slack, but what these trees really seem to need is something like an elephant (though, camels have been observed spreading yucca seeds). Elephants are such ideal fruit-dispersing animals because they'll swallow large quantities of the fruits, seeds and all, letting very little go to waste, before passing them potentially miles away in a large pile of manure (providing sustenance and preventing the plants from smothering their parents). Meanwhile, cattle do spread seeds, but have a tendency to crack them decreasing germination, horses will actually spit out seeds decreasing travel distance - both animals rarely pass the seed through their gut. Additional reading: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7694390/ (a study they did in Chile on just this topic).
>>16254255Incidentally, fruit seeds can be thought of as naturally occurring anal beads that trees use to reproduce; with seed size correlating to the anus circumference of the animal it'd 'ideally' like to pass through.
>>16254255>>16254277Nice trivia indeed.However, I wonder how much of the modern varieties of said fruits have already been artificially selected for? There's several cultivars for each of themhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RWcGBCaOOEBut yes, it really is interesting the "dance" of specialization and co-dependency that some species of different kingdoms can reach through co-evolution.
>>16254255great chart, BTW. SAved
I heard sauropods herded, you heard?
Woah!
>>16253342>>16253346I'm so used to seeing fossils of marine animals way up in the mountains, so it's interesting to hear you found some so close to where they were originally. I would have thought they'd get worn down or eaten up by something before getting a chance to become a fossil. One paleontology/paleoecology topic I'm really curious to learn more about, but basically know next-to-nothing about, is the various reef building organisms throughout different periods of life. For a long time I thought coral and sponges were the dominant reef building organisms for essentially most of history (with exception to bacterial mats, stromatolites and microbialites), but then only recently learned that the major reef builders during the Cretaceous were some strange bivalve called rudists(?) But now I'm even more curious about what kind of varying environmental conditions cause those changes to happen. That something as ubiquitous as corals and sponges could be outcompeted by shellfish, but then those same creatures not make it out the other end of the KT-extinction.
>>16239219From what I understand, the Devonian extinction was what really killed them; the Permian was just the finishing blow. Marine life, being mostly ectothermic, never fairs well with large changes in temperature/environment. I'm sure the evolution of more fit animals like jawed fishes didn't help them either. Also like >>16239231 said, those that survived the P-T extinction were the exceptions. Picrel is from "Introduction to Paleobiology and the Fossil Record" by M Benton & D Harper for anyone wondering.
Here's a picture of a linguliformean brachiopod fossil I found. It's quite small (1/2 inch). The most interesting thing about it is that I found it on a farm near Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada which is about as far away from any ocean that you can get. The rock itself is a siltstone, and was in a pile of loose rocks (glacial till like everything else around here). No idea what the age would be. Assuming it's from the western interior seaway it's probably relatively young? Were it hacked off an actual rock formation I could take a more definitive guess...
>>16240355>>16247308Oopsie whoopsie we've got an istophobe over here! Soon you'll learn most things believed about dinosaurs currently are low IQ clickbait that bear no resemblance to the fossil record. This trend of depicting sauropods with their necks at the most energetically costly angle possible is just one of many fuckups going on right now. Wait til you get around to Mamenchisaurs. They are literally physically impossible animals unless they were bipeds that walked on their front legs. There is serious fuckery going on in dinosaur studies the past 30 years. "Muh air sacks" is a real popular way of trying to handwave this away, but any animal that large will have a neck of several tons just based on the muscle and blood alone.>>16247416PLEASE. You fags aren't even doing paleontology anymore. What you're doing is philosophy at this point. You make up wild ass theories, then try to shoehorn dinosaurs into them. Then those "theories" get exposed as the fraud they are and you scream that everyone is a transphobe.
>>16249844Niche partitioning isn't unique to the Mesozoic. Humans have just killed almost every large animal in this age.
>>16249917>Yes, I am particularly intrigued how so many large sauropods could be sustained, while ravaging the canopies of so many treesYou're probably talking about the Morrison Formation. The answer is you're talking about a formation the size of the american west that spans 10 million years. Not all of these animals lived at the same time, they occupied about half a continent and could freely migrate, and there are a LOT of synonyms so likely a good 50% of these "species" never existed. This is a common problem in dinosaur studies. Most people, even researches are too fucking stupid to understand chronospecies so they just assume every animal found in a deposit lived at the same time. There is also a strong impetus in taxonomy to name as many species as possible so you can publish more papers. That's why shit like Torosaurus and Nanotyrannus simply won't fucking die. The Morrison Formation has also historically been depicted as MUCH more arid than it actually was. Unfortunately, this is also actually common and probably comes from global warming hysteria since the false claim is that the Earth will become drier at these temps (the opposite is the case - warmer times lead to a more humid and lush Earth).
>>16252014>During the Eocene thermal maximum the ice caps were gone and the tropics were an unlivable dead zone.Ecologist here. You're a fucking idiot. The PETM is when the genus Acropora first appeared, then took over coral reefs. Your delusional belief in the supremacy of deserts is one of many faith based idiocies destroying paleontological studies.
>>16252137Of course it is, you idiot. Not only that, but your kind have been fucking up paleoecological studies for decades. Sit down and shut the fuck up for a change. Your lies don't equal science.
>>16252370They're not creationists. They're glowniggers. It's called poisoning the well. They do the same thing with flat erf bullshit (which is meant to pair moon landing skepticism with flat earthism). The target here is that faith in scientism is at all time lows, so they post all this anti-dinosaur bullshit to "show" people that you're an idiot if you're "against science". Problem is, most people interested in dinosaurs already know that paleontology has been fucked since Jurassic Park and trannies and marbul fans took over, so it has zero positive effect.
>>16252447Yes I'm sure the chink farmer that doctored it no doubt was able to start up a scam business with the money he got for it.
>>16254255Keep in mind that just adding non-native species is NOT "rewilding". Retards have taken over the conversation and perverted the meaning of rewilding into "wouldn't it be neat if we introduced polar bears into antarctica!?" There is nothing "wild" about african elephants in Mexico.
>>16255886>Soon you'll learn most things believed about dinosaurs currently are low IQ clickbait that bear no resemblance to the fossil record. This trend of depicting sauropods with their necks at the most energetically costly angle possible is just one of many fuckups going on right now. Wait til you get around to Mamenchisaurs. They are literally physically impossible animals unless they were bipeds that walked on their front legs. There is serious fuckery going on in dinosaur studies the past 30 years. "Muh air sacks" is a real popular way of trying to handwave this away, but any animal that large will have a neck of several tons just based on the muscle and blood alone.Let me get this straight: if we don't yet know how, it automatically implies it's impossible? kek
>>16255900>This is a common problem in dinosaur studies. Most people, even researches are too fucking stupid to understand chronospecies so they just assume every animal found in a deposit lived at the same time.No, we do not. It is well understood.What is interesting nonetheless is to try to figure out the carrying capacity of the habitat with these giant canopy-eaters walking around. How many such animals could forests support, assuming they did indeed raise their necks so far high. There's lots of daisy-chained questions we can wonder about in these matters, but for which we don't have good, clear, evidence yet.
>>16255932>chinkthis way, please:>>>/pol/
>>16256097Oh no, that's not it at all. Most views about dinosaurs these days aren't based on paleontology AT ALL. They're random ass "theories" cut from whole cloth and push into the public as though they were based on evidence. Feathers on T. rex is an excellent example. Fat dinosaurs is another. The posture everyone religiously puts sauropod necks at is yet another. None of this is based on reality or any fossil evidence. It's just wild ass speculating (and not even logical speculation at that) used in place of actual scientific work, because doing actual science is hard and STEM is full of women and retards now.>>16256105No you don't, you utter faggot. You can't even understand that Torosaurus are just adult Triceratopsins. If you can't even grasp something that fucking basic, there's no way in hell you're sussing out subtle anatomical details. You also RELIGIOUSLY undercalculate precipitation in Mesozoic biomes. Usually by about half. The Morrison is stereotypical for this. The current (wrong) view is that it was about 4x as dry as the Serengeti, which is fucking laughable.>>16256110>>>back to the third world
>>16256207>Most views about dinosaurs these days aren't based on paleontology AT ALL.Excuse me?>They're random ass "theories" cut from whole cloth and push into the public as though they were based on evidence.I think you're misinterpreting what research paleontologist are saying. Mainstream science communicators don't count here, mind you; they make misinterpretation errors and don't even communicate things properly sometimes, even when they understand them well>Feathers on T. rex is an excellent example.Again, no research paleontologist pushes for that. Feathers have been found on smaller theropod relatives of T. rex, leading some to speculate that the T. rex may have also had feathers. Speculation is not affirmation, it's hypothesizing, and as far as I know, and I've pretty much listened to all t-rex lectures online, by research paleontologists, none has affirmed such a thing.>Fat dinosaurs is another.You mean sauropoda? Again, speculation, and that is fine. Unless my memory fails me, it's always clearly stated to be so ("we think that", "we reason that", etc), and I also have devoured all paleontologist lectures on the subject.>utter faggotbummer, this convo is over. It might actually have been interesting.
>>16255886>>16247308>>16240355Sauropod neck posture is debated, but it's not debated arbitrarily:The sweeping vs upright neck posture of the animal is suggested/influenced by where the final vertebrae of the neck goes into the back of their tiny head (?foramen magnume?) and the visible wear created from how it moves. FURTHERMORE, the upright, curving, S shaped neck posture of both the Brachiosaurus and the Camarasaurus (despite looking weird) are actually very common/somewhat constant: most vertebrates hold their neck in an S shaped posture - horses, humans, rabbits, even pigs and cattle to some extent. The sweeping vertical neck posture of the Diplodocus and Apatosaurus is the actual odd-one out - something we typically only see in marine animals (Plesiosaurs can be vertical because buoyancy), but both of these animals would replace their teeth nearly every 2nd week suggesting an extremely strenuous feeding regime, so maybe their wild-and-wacky neck reach was worth it for the mixed-browsing benefits. >>16256207>>16255900>Shitting and pissing about the Morrison Formation: which nobody mentioned.>Shitting and pissing about 'chronospecies' when Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus, Camarasaurus, and Apatosaurus, DID objectively live together in the same time period and in large herds. >Shitting and pissing about the misidentification of infant dinosaurs as sub-species: which nobody mentioned AND has largely stopped being a thing after people started cutting open spare fossils to examine the texture of the interior of the bone - and because more zoologists began participating in the field in the 90's to 00's.
>>16256282>Excuse me?I will not.>I think you're misinterpreting what research paleontologist are saying.Sorry no, I read the papers. Example: the paper that convinced everyone that sauropods hold their necks at 45° angles begins by reasonably talking about how most animals hold their necks upright and shows a rabbit as an example, then it proceeds to do THE EXACT OPPOSITE for sauropods. The paper that convinced everyone that Torosaurus was a different genus from Triceratops claims one of the largest Torosaurs ever found was "a juvenile" and that nick longrich can sex Ceratopsids (something literally nobody can do). The problem is not MY misunderstanding, the problem is you scientismists DO NOT FUCKING READ THE PAPERS THIS BULLSHIT IS BASED ON.>Again, no research paleontologist pushes for thatLies and bullshit. Paleoart these days is often released IN scientific papers. Paleontologists don't just get to divorce themselves from the bullshit they've been pushing for 3 decades now by just claiming it's all the paleoartists' fault.>You mean sauropoda?I mean all modern reconstructions. Pee Pee was FULL of obese lizards. This is not based on a proper understanding of reptilian anatomy. There has been a push to equate dinosaurs with mammals since the Dinosaur Renaissance. Dinosaurs are NOT mammals. Dinosaurs are never going to fucking BE mammals. These are fundamentally different creatures and have different anatomical features.
>>16256294It's not "debated". Nothing in modern paleontology is "debated". What happens is one individual faggot lacking the sense god gave a decorative soap or a small cluster of such retards comes up with a bullshit idea, then they push it into all media as fast as they can for retard attention points. Then everyone rolls their eyes because the new idea is clearly idiotic, then everyone on jewtube and deviantart runs wild with it and then 6 months later everyone is parroting it. The correct neck postures of these animals were known 50 years ago. It's just trendy faggots that obscure the truth. Every few years there's a new stupid claim made and these dumb ass trends are ALWAYS wrong. ALWAYS. You can set your fucking watch to it. "Um actually feathers are ancestral to all dinosaurs". WRONG. "Um actually sauropods hold their necks at the most energetically wasteful angle". WRONG. "Um actually Triceratops had a head covered in a toenail". LAUGHABLY WRONG. And you smoothbrains never stop this shit. Fortunately, we're moving on without you. You can keep fapping to your fake chinese fossils while actual scientists keep uncovering reality. Your irrelevant and wrong opinions don't change reality.>Morrison Formation: which nobody mentionedA large diversity of sauropods only really exists in the Morrison Formation.
>>16255886>>16255900>>16255932>>16256105>>16256207>>16256312>>16256313so much anger, eeeshbro, go publish
>>16256323Ghislaine Maxwell's father's false "scientific" system is no longer of any value.
>>16256329>ad hominem>whataboutism>strawman arguments>bandwagoning>black-or-white>texas-sharpshooting>personal incredulity>fallacy fallacy>red-herringyou ever wonder why people don't want to listen to you or don't take you seriously?>Ghislaine Maxwell's father's false "scientific" system is no longer of any value.on top of that you're paranoid.Lost cause, this person doesn't want to debate, they just want to preach.Don't feed anons, just don't.
>>16256332Robert Maxwell was the creator of the current hellscape that is scientific journal publications
>>16256313The T-rex cooed like a little chick and was a cute boy. Sorry, your masculine science is fake.
>>16242399They don't. Mineral crystals replace those tissues at the microscopic level, preserving the details of the tissues, but the actual tissues are gone. They're rock now.
>>16243159Underrated post. Details? What little dude made these tracks?
>>16246350Extremely. The landscape of most continents other than Africa is WRECKED. These ecosystems look totally different than they did with megafauna. Forests mostly look the same (with some missing species), but more open habitats are totally different.
>>16256332Whine all you want. Your propaganda will never replace the truth. Repetition doesn't undo reality.
>sauropod neck seethe>chink hoaxes>masculine scienceI see /an/‘s paleoschizo has found the thread. Rip you were good while you lasted comfy dino thread
>>16257744>NOO NO NO!! This thread was supposed to be filled with disinfo! MODS STOP THIS!!!Here's david hone, an actual mainstream paleontologist having an absolute fucking MELTDOWN that ONLY scales were found on all late Tyrannosaurids (because these are the only ones we have data for so far) and seething and coping that they're not actually scales and T. rex still has feathers.
>>16257308>Details? What little dude made these tracks?https://azgs.arizona.edu/photo/reptile-trackway-permian-sandstone
no images on an image board?
>>16257744>sauropod neck seetheI know, imagine getting triggered over such matters, kek. It sure smells like teenager around here.
>>16249922check it out, those tracks are much like the paws on this big guy:>>16257917
>>16257917You would know. Women are more prolific pedophiles than men after all.
>>16257918>those tracks>the pawshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD14JFahlYs
three things I have always found intriguing is how convergent evolution did not again produce these:- the sauropod-type body plan after the cretaceous, and it was so successful during the mesozoic- the long-necked plesiosaur-types, if it worked in the past, why would it not evolve once again- the four-fin body types of marine reptiles, cetacea don't have have them and evolved towards the two-finned mode.
I'm an engineer but I can guarantee most paleofags are using machines I've worked on for doing their work
OK but what if their necks weren't above ground at all but more like fat snakes
>>16234033There was a book written about living dinosaurs in Africa, you could look it up. Him or another guy was also visiting some place and said two of the guys in the camp/tribe he was staying with killed and ate one. The term "dinosaur" was also coined in 1841 and if you find an old enough dictionary you'll see "now rare" included for the definition of dragons. I could post more and find some links and stuff, but I can't be bothered. There's also a trilobyte (IIRC) fossile that has a human footprint on it, or soft tissue in some dinosaur fossils (soft tissue couldn't have lasted as long as they claim the fossils are). I guess I'll leave with one more thing: radio isotope dating of samples of known ages is known not to work, but of samples of unknown age it is assumed to work. No idea if those are genuine footsteps or not. Also, birds didn't come from dinosaurs, lol. That's just evolutionist religious speculation.
>>16258059>three things I have always found intriguing is how convergent evolution did not again produce these:Plesiosaurs, with exception to the more seal-alligatory-shaped ones, are a big mystery. We have their stomach contents, so we know they ate fish and cephalopods, but then how the shit did they catch them and what was the neck for? The only thing that bares even a passing resemblance to the body plan of the Plesiosaur is maybe foot-propelled diving birds and wing-propelled diving birds: something with flippers, a round body, and a long neck that pokes around, like a more stretched-out cormorant or grebe perhaps. Otherwise you're right - no animal has bothered to replicate this body plan since they're extinction.But then maybe their specific niche doesn't exist anymore? Because they also lived a long side more short-necked, vaguely seal-shaped, plesiosaur species, as well as the Ichthyosaurs for a time, but then ultimately won out on that specific exchange with the Ichyosaurs for whatever reason, so did they outcompete them are actually just a great body plan that got unlucky?
>>16258059This nigger forgot about giraffes
>>16258730My pet theory is that the long necked plesiosaurs were ambush predators akin to Moray eels, lurking perhaps in shallow kelp forests and using their long necks to dart through the seaweed to catch unwary fish, but their large bodies remaining mostly stationary as they hunted, concealed by the kelp.
>>16258059>the sauropod-type body plan after the cretaceous, and it was so successful during the mesozoicElephants and giraffes are essentially the same, with the trunk replacing the function of the long neck in increasing the browsing envelope.The mammalian mega fauna are just limited in size by their inferior respiratory system and lack of pneumatic bones.
>>16258753>Elephants and giraffes are essentially the same, with the trunk replacing the function of the long neck in increasing the browsing envelope.The trunk of the elephant is such a brilliant work-around to the neck problem faced with giraffes and sauropods. Having a long, massive, neck is a massive inconvenience (in the neck): one of your most vulnerable body parts is constantly exposed, you have to make your head super tiny due how difficult it is to get blood-flow up there, running into constant issues with lowering or raising your head. Even the Giraffes made some attempt at circumventing this bullshit by just making their legs even longer.But then you have elephants who don't have to deal with most of that, and can even make themselves extremely bulky at that, because they just made nose long.
>>16258762Not to mention it gives the beasts a fighting chance at swatting away bugs etc that irritate their faces, and allows them to manipulate all manner of objects in ways otherwise reserved for primates and their opposable thumbs.
>>16257751Nobody mentioned this until you posted it retard
>>16258663we're going to need sauces on those claims, Some links would be nice.
>>16258730>But then maybe their specific niche doesn't exist anymore?it could so, or it's filled by more efficient life forms
>>16258753>Elephants and giraffes are essentially the same, with the trunk replacing the function of the long neck in increasing the browsing envelope.yes, they are, but not quite. The elphant ios indeed the closest, but interestingly developed a long lip/nostril instead of growing its neck.The girafe is also similar, but it chews, sio their guts are much smaller than sauropods, and they tails non-existent, so their locomotion must be completely different from sauropods, who I guess that to couter-swing their tails with their necks? It really is too bad sauropods are gone, there really is nothing quite like them anymore.
>>16258790>>16256332
>>16258824What's fascinating about the sauropods is that their sheer size meant that the efficency of their fermentive digestion must have been off the charts compared to modern super mammals, and produced significant internal heat, reducing their need to expend energy to actively warn themselves.You don't need to chew your food when you're carrying around an organic composting unit.
>>16257751>meltdownSounds pretty calm to me. He’s not entirely wrong either, Tyrannosaurs probably had both scales and naked skin
>>16255900>>16256207>>16256312Torosaurus and Triceratops are different animals. We've since found 'younger' Torosaurus skulls (pic related) that show signs of ontogeny; displayed via varying rates of skull fusion between individuals that contrast between that of Triceratops. Likewise, we've also found Triceratops that are demonstratable 'older' and 'more mature' than some Torosaur skulls for the opposite reason. In other words: if Torosaurus was just an adult Triceratops all Torosaurus would all have fused skulls consistent with adult development, but instead we've found a spectrum of varying growth rates that correspond to maturity in two different species/sub-species. Citation used: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221890987_Torosaurus_Is_Not_Triceratops_Ontogeny_in_Chasmosaurine_Ceratopsids_as_a_Case_Study_in_Dinosaur_TaxonomyEvidence not-with-standing: your meltdown where you fill your diaper and scream at everybody about whatever pop-science headline you just saw is retarded and worthless. We find new shit about dinosaurs ALL THE FUCKING TIME that dramatically changes everything. You're accusing David Hone of having a """meltdown"" >>16257751 on Reddit over feathered t-rexes (he is wrong tho, we have large skin print sections of adult t-rex torsos and they're not feathered. The size, diet, and environment it lived in also doesn't really behoove feathering) when you're smearing shit on the walls in comparison, and for the exact same reason he is; you decided what what was "correct", drew a line in the sand, and when the tide came you screamed and declared war on the ocean.
>>16258844Bring them back, I say. Grab the nearest relative and initiate selective breeding programs.kekMinor personal comment: this particular art piece is spectacular but I have a hard time believing those bodies could counter the necks' leverage like that, even if highly pneumatized. I lean (ha, pun!) towards the S-curve neck hypothesis myself. But it sure looks pretty.
>>16237487Those fucking muscular legs>>16247218those fucking insanely robust teeth and jawbones>>16249203that stereo visionThese things had eyes the size of grapefruits, and if predatory birds now see a mouse from hundreds of meters away, you know that, likely, this thing too had to spot its large-sized prey from many, many hundreds of meters away, possibly kilometers, stalking it for hours, possibly reading the wind as to not reveal its own scent, waiting for the right moment to graft onto the victim's body like a pitbull on steroids. Teeth stapled into flesh, bones shattering in the commotion, ever letting go, to the death.Absolutely the most terrifying land creatures I can think of, ever.
>>16258730regarding the four flippers, it seems the evolutionary divergence between the mammalian marine forms and reptilian forms is due to their spines having different mechanical properties and functions on land: mammalian spines are vertically flexible, for running, while reptiles are more laterally flexible, due to the way they walk and waddle.Into the water, this led to mammals preferentially flex up and down, developing a fluke, and the reptiles from side to side, developing vertical tails and adapting their legs onto flippers.Seems like a plausible explanation, but still very debatable. At least that's a starting point.
>>16259468Well at least you got the side to side part right.
>>16258638That's pretty much what Diplodocus was doing.
>>16258948I think you may be on the spectrum.
>>16259022Have you ever actually read wrongbitch's paper? Cause it sounds like you haven't. Either that or you don't know a damn thing about dinosaurs. What's baffling is I already explained what is wrong with this very paper, yet you still posted it as though it's proof of the retarded incorrect theory. Just mind-boggling. So I'll ask you two questions directly. Test time!1: Can Ceratopsids be sexed?2: Is an animal with a 9' long skull actually a juvenile?
>>16259468yes, that too is the best explanation I have found so far, but not much on it though
mudafukin' bump
>>16234932Animals have a certain density (we're mostly water) and given the volume of the skeleton + soft tissue, the mass can be estimated.
Why Jurassic dinosaurs gets less attention than Cretaceous?
>>16260404Less evidence. Late Cretaceous dinosaurs are more heavily studied mostly because of two regions: Hell Creek (and Dinosaur Park) and all the fake shit coming from CHYNA.
>>16259932Explain how and why pic related isn't an adult and younger Torosaur first. Explain. You're so fucking confident it should be easy.Nothing else you've said has mattered because it doesn't address the main point. The actual substantive claim of the paper is: Torosaurs display neoteny and a spectrum of growth in fused and unfused skulls. Explain how that's possible if Torosaurs are supposed to be an adult Triceratops. Explain how there are YOUNGER Torosaurs and OLDER Triceratops if Torosaurs are supposed to be the adult and not a different species/sub-species. Pic related. Do it. Fuck you. You can't or you would have. Fucking do it you faggot. We can't sex Ceratopsids - you're mentioning it because it's his weakest argument and you don't have anything for his stronger argument. Pussy. Refute it. Mentioning the size of the animal also doesn't do anything for your argument: an elk calf is almost 40lbs while a whitetail fawn is 8lbs, of course a juvenile Torosaur is going to be larger - the whole animal is larger. What the fuck are you talking about.Torosaur is a separate sub-species/species of dinosaur in the *exact* same way we know Dracorex & Stygiolich are just younger/adolescent Pachycephalosaurs and not distinct species; using the exact process Jack Horner (your possible boy friend and personal god) set up in the first place.
>>16260473>>16259932Here's more. Here's EVEN MORE Torosaur skulls, specifically look at: ANSP 15192, EM P16.1, AMHNH 5116, displaying a transitional growth process where the *Torosaur* grows the fuck up. The smooth, holed, frill: extending, sprawling out, and at no point being a fucking Triceratops. *GRANTED* because I'm not an enormous fucking loser (like you); M0R 981, M0R 1122, *do* have Triceratops-esque frill bumpies on the backs of their frills - does this mean they're Triceratops? No. Fuck you. Could this infer some degree of cross-breeding or hybridized individuals in a similar way seen in modern day Bison x Cattle? Possibly. But that's absolutely an adolescent Torosaur on the right.
>>16260473I know more about Triceratopsins than you ever will. There's no arguing with retardation on your level. If you think a "juvenile" has a skull of 9' you're behind reason.
>>16260512*beyondAlso, nobody can sex Ceratopsids and wrongbitch isn't special in this regard.
>>16242458Astronomy is another field full of terms that stopped making sense once we found out more about various phenomena.
Can someone explain the evolutionary process that had to take place that made paleoschizo migrate from /an/ to /sci/?
>>16259929Takes one to know one faggot. I’m not the one who cries about dinosaurs all day
>>16260643Doesn’t seem like there’s been a thread by him in a while, even with the fat T rex thread up now. Maybe he got banned
it sure is ceratopsy in here
>>16260741The fuck is it eating?
>>16260775capellini
>>16255935>There is nothing "wild" about african elephants in Mexico.I used to hold a semi-adjacent view like this, but for horses/donkeys/zebras. The Pleistocene Extinctions has deleted the maybe half dozen species of equid that used to live in North America and for a long time I thought a horse was a horse, so why not just export some from Europe or Africa. But, then we went and got better, more intact, dna from permafrost horses in Alaska and Russia and North American extinct Pleistocene horses are actually radically genetically different - like with a possible separation of over 3 million years or something. So for now I'm waiting to see if the "Clone Mammoth" trend will actually bare any fruit and if we can, possibly, reconstruct hybridized extinct animals from sampled clone tissue and modern surrogate species - or if it's just another WEF pop-science scam like space elevators, eating bugs, or cold fusion. I keep hearing a lot of "6 more years" and not enough demonstratable homework or "lore".
>>16262017>dino shill>posts chinese picturesCANNOT make this up!
