this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Does anyone know if this is something that was actually possible? Like, how sure are we they looked one way and not the other?

[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (1 children)

“Every reconstruction involves some level of inference and speculation to literally ‘flesh out’ details not preserved in the fossil record,” Celeskey explains. “In the process of creating paleoart, artists and the researchers have discussions about how to fill in these missing pieces, which helps everyone involved to think about how they are interpreting the actual evidence at hand.” From a NatGeo article I found

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (2 children)

“I asked around the office and everyone agreed that giving the t-Rex wings looked dope”

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Similarly, "I asked around the office and everyone agreed that giving dinos the feathers we now know they had would look too silly"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

"Triceratops had cat ears because of reasons."

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Nope, sauropods were already right up against the limit of what's physically possible for a land animal on Earth. If they were that chonky they would have been too heavy and would have overheated just from their body heat.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like skinny dinosaur propaganda to me.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I was in an Avant-funk band called Skinny Dinosaur Propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sorry to disappoint you, but it didn't. I made it up as a joke 🤷

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Would it help if I pointed out that your hair looks nice today?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Nice! How much was it? I've been looking for a nice looking hair myself but they're outside of my price range!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Check your mammalian privilege.

Signed, dinosaurs.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

Not very likely due to the weight. Same with the trunk suggestion, there was a lot of air space and gaps in the few skulls that were preserved to make them weight less.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

Of course it's possible. It's highly improbable due to weight, of course, but it's not impossible.

There's a lot of information that was not recorded in fossil, and we have very few fossil recorded, compared to how many animals of a species lived. How we reconstruct existinct animals keeps on changing with every new information, so it's always cool to challenge the way we view a creature.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Do you think a penguin of that size could get anywhere? The process of reconstruction is a very complex one, but basically they look for clues in the remains and speculate what is evolutionarily most likely.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Okay but perhaps he just took the bus most of the time 🐧 🚎

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Actually, they preferred bullet trains and cable cars, dependent on distance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Isn’t that a song off ulver’s newest record

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

No idea who ulver is, so I'm gonna go with maybe 🤷