this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago

First they came for the velociraptors, and I did not chomp them - because I was not a velociraptor.

Then they came for the stegosauruses, and I did not chomp them - because I was not a stegosaurus.

Then they came for the triceratops, and I did not chomp them - because I was not a triceratops.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to chomp them for me.

-Theodore Rex

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Go back to your little hut that I had to build for you. Your age is long gone, chicken!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

Is it though?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I wonder if you could see the meteor in the sky approaching in the days and hours leading up it.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Arguably the bleakest TV show of all-time, based solely on the ending.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There were always hints that the lighthearted sitcom was actually darker than it seemed, but the ending, my god... how many kids were traumatized by that? Lots of kids watched Dinosaurs.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

As an adult, It makes me so happy that they "went there" though. But I also still remember being sad. The pan away to the snowy, doomed landscape. Man.

Had to watch it again.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, that show had some amazing environmental messages in it for something people thought was just silly comedy. All the Dinosaurs had last names of oil companies. Earl's job was literally helping to deforest the planet. They also covered things like gender roles and even sexual harassment. It was an amazingly progressive show with a strong political message that a lot of people entirely missed because "not da mama!"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Also Ferngully. Though that was maybe pretty hard to miss.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Had to watch it again.

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

The way we're going, it's prescient.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Fun fact: I heard that the meteor was not actually what killed them off, but rather even before that, changes in the atmosphere had already begun to make ginormous lizards a less viable solution.

Mammals were just so adaptable, that we adapted to the post-meteor changes, even as we had already been adapting to the before-meteor ones.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I am guessing that most, if not all, mass extinctions were a multi-cause issue.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Even so, one line of thinking along those lines is that the meteor did not in fact kill off the dinosaurs. It did manage to polish them off, but they were decreasing in prominence as mammals increased already. I doubt anyone could prove one way or another, but it's a fascinating thought to ponder b/c if true, that would mean that the meteor was not the primary cause of their extinction:-). Maybe it was their lack of adaptability? As in, they were fossils even when they were alive:-P.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Birds are, essentially, dinosaurs. Dinosaurs never died out, they just got smaller.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I know what you mean but... actually it's more like crocs, alligators, and gila monsters are the "dinosaurs" - especially since that word essentially means "large lizard":-P. Birds are also their descendents its true but they kinda also have their own thing going on, having abandoned their origins in favor of that.

You're not wrong though:-).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

They are not "living large reptiles" though:-P.

Likely they are referring to birds being in a monophyletic clade alongside dinos, but by that logic, humans are monkeys.

I mean, we are warmblooded, give live birth, have opposable thumbs, etc., so we aren't "not apes"... but also we are so much more, so very different than how we started.

Also, computers are rocks.:-D

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I think you're confusing a word's origin with what scientists understand now. Please explain the functional difference between a modern bird and a prehistoric theropod.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Since you asked for *functional difference", the first one that comes to mind is that birds can fly? Another is that while all birds descended from dinosaurs, not all dinosaurs descended from birds - in fact none did afaik.

Another example like this is that all large mammals descended originally from single-celled organisms, but not all single-celled organisms descended from multicellular ones, in fact most (probably literally all?) did not.

Likewise, just as all single-celled + multicellular eukaryotes belong to a single monophyletic clade, but there are ENORMOUS differences between them (fungi vs. plants vs. humans), so too do dinosaurs and avians belong to the same monophyletic clade, for all that that means.

Which MEANS then that the word "dinosaur" itself needed to be redefined, after that discovery about birds being part of the same group. So they did that:

Dinosaurs are extinct animals with upright limbs that lived on land during the Mesozoic Era (252 to 66 million years ago).

And the paragraph after that also talks about birds, citing why paleontologists use the term "non-avian theropods" to carefully distinguish the true reptiles from the birds that came out from their midst.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

the first one that comes to mind is that birds can fly?

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

Another is that while all birds descended from dinosaurs, not all dinosaurs descended from birds - in fact none did afaik.

Which is why I said all birds are dinosaurs, not all dinosaurs are birds. What does that have to do with anything?

Another example like this is that all large mammals descended originally from single-celled organisms, but not all single-celled organisms descended from multicellular ones, in fact most (probably literally all?) did not.

Likewise, just as all single-celled + multicellular eukaryotes belong to a single monophyletic clade, but there are ENORMOUS differences between them (fungi vs. plants vs. humans), so too do dinosaurs and avians belong to the same monophyletic clade, for all that that means.

Nothing to do with theropods vs. birds.

Which MEANS then that the word “dinosaur” itself needed to be redefined, after that discovery about birds being part of the same group. So they did that:

Your link says that is a "more handy general definition," not a scientific one. Furthermore, the very next paragraph of your link says-

Our definition above does leave out something very important: It is now known that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs during the Jurassic. Therefore, dinosaurs are not extinct, they are not confined to the land, and we would not think of many true dinosaurs as “reptiles”. Because modern birds are so distinct from reptiles, and became very specialized for flight early on, many paleontologists find it useful to distinguish birds from the other dinosaurs. If you go through the scientific literature, you might see something like “non-avian dinosaur”. This just means the scientist is excluding birds.

Did you even read it? It literally contradicts your claim. It can't contradict your claim any more clearly. And yet you use it to make your point that birds are not dinosaurs?

And the paragraph after that also talks about birds, citing why paleontologists use the term “non-avian theropods” to carefully distinguish the true reptiles from the birds that came out from their midst.

Ah, so birds are theropods.

So theropods both are and are not dinosaurs?

Yet again- paleontologists disagree with you. Do you have a degree in their field?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

... right, "Archaeopteryx" can fly, but not all "dinosaurs" can fly. That distinction is crucial.

In an entirely different manner, "dinosaur" != "theropod" bc the former is a common word, an unscientific one, whereas the latter is a more precise one. If you had originally asked me are birds theropods, I would have been forced to say yes (entirely unbegrudgingly though, I'm just emphasizing how I would have no choice), but that's not what you asked: you talked about DINOSAURS vs. birds, which is an entirely different thing, being in the realm of common use of those words.

Anyway, I agree that it is good to learn more about things, and as we do, we become better ourselves.:-)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

No one said all dinosaurs can fly or that all dinosaurs are birds.

I said birds are dinosaurs.

Paleontologists say birds are dinosaurs.

The link you provided me said birds are dinosaurs.

Only you disagree.

"Common use" of the words does not matter. Birds are dinosaurs in every biological way.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Likely they are referring to birds being in a monophyletic clade alongside dinos, but by that logic, humans are monkeys.

I mean we pretty much are. Aside from going hairless and standing upright how much different are we really?

Computers are further removed from rocks than a dinosaur is from a mamal.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Hehe computers are not animals or vegetables so...

It's metal + plastic.

Just like dinos and birbs have feathers.

Unless we say that the origin of things is not necessarily the sum total explanation of what they are.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Are you having some kind of aneurysm? We aren't talking about raw materials, we are talking about evolution and how similar things are. Humans are functionally still animals. Computers are not functionally just rocks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Crocs are about as far away from dinosaurs as an archosaur can get. They split off from them very early on. Note where birds fall on this chart on the other hand.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Neat, I didn't know that - that's awesome:-).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

According to this you could: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFCbJmgeHmA

Runs through the whole process and is an interesting watch.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Fuck yeah thanks. Don't know how I missed this lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=dFCbJmgeHmA

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Even if mammals will grow bigger, they will never threaten dinosaurs to go extinct

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes the dinosaurs, the alpha predators of today.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Are you under the impression that there are no birds that are apex predators?

I mean... Eagles? Raptors? Owls?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Those aren’t in the photo you posted 🫨

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes the dinosaurs, the alpha predators of today.

Your words. Birds are dinosaurs. Some of them are apex predators.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

My words are as they were written, not as you wrote kiddo

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Yes. Your words as written was a sarcastic suggestion that dinosaurs are not apex predators today. Very clearly. You can see that because you pasted it.

They are because birds are dinosaurs and some birds are apex predators.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

The D in D-Day stands for day

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

My 'sona is literally a dragon/troodontid hybrid.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Those are my ancestors there 🥹

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

This is truly amazing!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Is this from that book of West of Eden? I haven't read it yet 🥲