Dinosaur

This article is awesome. Do not fuck it up.

A Tyrannosaurus rex! (Now inaccurate, the real thing was scaly in light of new research.)

" Birds aren't descended from dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs. Which means that the fastest animal alive today is a small carnivorous dinosaur, Falco peregrinus. It preys mainly on other dinosaurs, which it strikes and kills in midair with its claws. This is a good world."

– XKCD 1211

" Holy fucking shit, it's a dinosaur! Jesus Christ! What the fuck!? Oh my fucking god, fucking dinosaurs, holy shit. What the fuuuuuuck!?"

– Anthem of the fucking dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs are a category of creatures of the clade Dinosauria, which first emerged around 250 million years ago, in the Triassic period. Assuming some matters regarding carbon dating working on them, some biological material found, and bones that aren’t fossilized doesn’t make you afraid to go into the woods. Generally these creatures have been classified as reptiles, with their name itself meaning "terrible" (deino) "lizard" (sauros), since their discovery and cataloging by modern science. However due to recent discoveries, it created a large divide in the Paleontology community on whether they should still be classified as inherently reptile or something completely new.

Dinosaurs came to be the dominant form of large, scaly (or feathery), land dwelling life forms across all of earth's major continents through the Jurassic and Cretaceous period. Dinosaurs were, and are, the biggest animals ever to live on the planet, however, what counts as THE biggest is often up in debate by the scientific community, as this usually this ends in flamewars between Sauropod-Fanboys and Cetacean-Fanboys (yes, they do exist, kind of like the relationship between Star Wars fanboys and Star Trek fanboys), but the more neutral agreement is Sauropods=Land and Whales=Ocean.

They are regarded as awesome for several reasons....

• They appeal to the sensational because they're "monsters", but unlike most, they actually DID exist.
• It's also been postulated that dinosaurs were the inspiration for dragons with people discovering dinosaur bones and making up stories about them, though that is debatable.
• Quite a few of the more massive dinosaurs were larger (as in much larger) than the biggest living land mammal, the African Elephant. In fact, the Paraceratherium orgosensis (a relative to the direct ancestor to the modern Rhinoceros) which was the largest land mammal to have ever existed, would be classified as "small-sized" by sauropod standards.
• The largest sauropods are so colossal that they could be classified as "Kaiju-Size" and could furthermore cause mini-earthquakes and create sonic booms with their tails.
• A posited idea is that if the asteroid did not hit Earth, then it would be the Troodontidae (a family of intelligent non-avian dinosaur, which resembled Velociraptor) that would be building civilizations and spaceships rather than humans.
• Not even the Angry Marines will DARE fuck with these things. They rage all the time, but they're not that stubbornly, angrily boneheaded.
• Miniatures are easily and cheaply obtained. This is why they got into D&D in the first place (see down).

Tl;dr, Dinosaurs are NOT to be fucked with.

A modern day dinosaur of the theropod lineage

Most lines of dinosaur were extinguished during the Cretaceous–Paleogene Extinction Event some 66 million years ago because of some random space rock that came in out of nowhere. Most scientists actually do consider birds the only surviving branch of dinosaurs (that's right, its fair to say that all birds everywhere are living dinosaurs). The other close surviving relatives of dinosaurs are the crocodiles, a different branch of the archosaur family that carries on its traditions of eating whatever they want and giving no fucks about mammals. Contrary to popular belief, the Komodo dragon, a species of monitor lizard, wasn't descended from dinosaurs. It is, however, somewhat closely related to creatures commonly mistaken for dinosaurs - Mosasaurs.

Why Dinosaurs are Relevant to /tg/

• They're completely awesome.
• They've existed as monsters to slay since the early days of Dungeons & Dragons. The Eberron setting has them as animal companions for Halflings.
• Dinosaurs are not uncommon in the kind of pulp fantasy Gygax was inspired by, often surviving into the modern day in a "Lost World".
• Cavalry mounts for Exodite Eldar in Warhammer 40k.
• Cavalry mounts, battling rams, tanks, lawnmower for Lizardmen in WHFB. Also the primary native wildlife of Lustria.
  • Cavalry mounts for edgy and dark pointy ear fellows in WHFB.
• They are literary dragon without wings and the ability to spew flame.
  • Ok, some of them can fly, but that's even more awesome.
• Tarrasque
• In Magic: The Gathering, dinos were originally in the game, but were then retroactively treated as either lizards or beasts depending on the printing until Ixalan came along and gave us legitimate dinosaurs. Since then, all cards that depict dinosaurs have been errataed to have the Dinosaur creature type.

Things people think are dinosaurs, but are not:

Some people think of dinosaur as any large extinct prehistoric reptile and tend to lump a bunch of non dinosaurs into the dinosaur category. These include...

• Pterosaurs: These flying archosaurs had among their ranks the largest flying creatures that ever lived and were the closest clade to dinosaurs, both of which being descended from the Archosaurs, but they are not actually dinosaurs themselves. And anyone who says different needs to be introduced to the K-T asteroid there and then.
  • On a similar note crocodiles are also not dinosaurs despite also being descended from the Archosaurs, in fact Crocodilias form the entire second branch of the Archosaur tree and thus they are the closest living relatives to the dinosaurs, including the birds of all things.
• Marine Reptiles: During the Mesozoic era there were a variety of large marine reptiles, including Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs, Pliosaurs, Mosasaurs and various other sea beasties. As these creatures are big, reptillian, and look like dinosaurs, the general public often lumps them in as dinosaurs. In truth these are a number of separate families that took to the sea.
• Synapsids: Before the dinosaurs really took off as the dominant form of life during the late Triassic period, the Synapsids, sometimes known as "mammal-like reptiles" were king. One member of this clade is Dimetrodon or "that fin-back lizard thing' in the Land Before Time and those sets of dinosaur toys your mom bought you when you were a kid". You can tell they're not dinosaurs (and this is a very loose definition) thanks to an extra opening in the skull behind the eye where jaw muscles attached and later became the Sphenoid bone which sits behind the eyes, specialized teeth including canine teeth, among many other distinguishing traits. As the name suggests these guys became the early mammals which turned into us, in fact put a finger behind your eye and one behind your check bone. If you Squeeze that ridge of bone you feel is your own Sphenoid. It's unknown at what point they began to give birth to live young and lactate, although since fur was an extremely late adaptation its generally thought there was a point where something that looked like a dinosaur had lizard tits teats.
• Not Quite Dinosaurs: A bit more obscure, but worth a mention. When dinosaurs showed up on the scene in the Triassic Period, they were not alone. A wide variety of large reptiles emerged and evolved alongside them. Among these were other Archosaurs, which included several close relatives to dinosaurs and creatures more closely related to modern crocodiles such as Postosuchus which had some very dinosaurian features. The Triassic Period ended with an extinction event which did in most of these lineages, leaving the Dinosaurs, Crocodilians and Pterosaurs the last of these big reptiles standing.

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  Quetzalcoatlus, the largest living thing that could ever fly.

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  Mosasaur, a giant predatory monitor lizard from the time when sea monsters were real.

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  Gorgonopsid, closer to you than a dinosaur but not a relative you'd invite over for tea.

Major groups of dinosaurs

Prepare for SCIENCE. The major two types of dinosaur are divided according to the shape of their hip bone.

Saurischia

The "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs. Ironically, birds are part of Saurischia.

Theropoda

• Easy name: Meat-eaters
• Well known members: Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, Gallimimus
• Awesome obscure members: Deinocheirus, Yi, Gypaetus, Majungasaurus

You know them well. The hunters of the prehistoric world. Theropods were likely the first group of dinosaurs to arise, and diversified quite a lot. Also the only group to survive the asteroid impact (and subsequent climate change). The loss of these awe- inspiring hunters was one of the only things to make Khorne sad. EVER. Then he RAGED because there were no Psykers around at the time, so he couldn't have sent his Daemons to capture the Theropod dinosaurs and make them his servants.

Therizinosauria

• Easy name: The Weird Ones
• Well known members: Therizinosaurus,
• Awesome obscure members: They're all obscure

Therizinosaurus are to theropods what pandas are to normal bears. They used to be carnivores, now they eat plants, which gives them a weird mish-mash of features. While part of the Theropod clade they are too weird not to be worth a mention all on their own. They are most well known for having massive claws, in fact Therizinosaurus means scythe lizard. While they could be used to manipulate plants they could also have used for defense, and again they are massive.

Avialae

• Easy name: Birds/Proto-birds
• Well known members: Archaeopteryx,Microraptor, Birds
• Awesome obscure members: Rahonavis,Scansoriopterygidae, The Terror birds

At this point it's been basically confirmed that birds=dinosaurs and Avialae are the group that not only became birds, it also includes them. While many of the species that actually lived in the age of dinosaurs were nothing impressive, most being smallish and likely being insectivore, birds never 'forgot' how to be dinosaurs and for a long time large flightless birds were the dominate land predator of South America. These species are known informally as "The Terror Birds".

Sauropoda

• Easy name: Long-necks
• Well known members: Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus
• Awesome obscure members: Amargasaurus, Shunosaurus, Dreadnoughtus

The other most well-known group. Titans with nothing on their minds other than eating. Notable for having the largest animals in the history of the planet (longer than whales, but not nearly as heavy). Could, though, rear up on their hind legs (if those legs were the longer of the two pairs), and come down HARD to crush the LIVING FUCK out of ANYTHING, ANYTHING underneath. In theory anyway they could just end up shattering there legs into a thousand pieces, there's a good reason why Elephants can't jump after all. What is not in doubt is that being hit by one of there tails would be like being bitch slapped by Khorne him self, herbivore or not, even a T-Rex feel that in the morning. In fact we have a Allosaurus fossil with a broken jaw that could have come from such an impact, we don't (nor can we ever) know for sure but not impossible.

Ornithischia

The "bird-hipped" dinosaurs. Might be weird that birds aren't in this group, but the terms were coined in the 1800s, so what can ya do.

Thyreophora

• Easy name: Armored Dudes
• Well known members: Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Euoplocephalus
• Awesome obscure members: Kentrosaurus, Polacanthus, Sauropelta, Dacentrurus

Armor, man. These guys were walking tanks with rows of bony armor, or spikes or plates, with many species having weaponized tails which (among the Stegosauridae family) are known informally as Thagomizers after a Gary Larson Far Side Cartoon. Yes really. There is much skub about whether their armored plates were for defense or thermoregulation (ie, heat sinks). Also notable because some scientists believe that they had colossal, sideways dongs. Seriously, how the hell else could they bone? Can't do normal fucking with those spikes in the way...

Ornithopoda

• Easy name: Duck Bills
• Well known members: Iguanodon, Parasaurolophus, Edmontosaurus
• Awesome obscure members: Kulindadromeus, Shangtungosaurus, Tsintaosaurus

Your standard "dino plant-eaters", though some theorize they could have actually been quite aggressive, which considering how many people are killed by plant eating hippos and elephants is quite probable.We also actually know what one type sounded like!

Marginocephalia

• Easy name: Horned Faces
• Well known members: Triceratops, Protoceratops, Pachycephalosaurus
• Awesome obscure members: Diabloceratops, Einosaurus, Nasutoceratops

Probably the last major group to arise. All originally bipedal, but some grew too massive for that. Also had a weird convergent evolution with birds, they had straight-up beaks. Also made fuck-awesome battering rams or goring beasts in battle. Like, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY OR I WILL CRUSH YOU UNDER 9 TONS OF MOVING MUSCLE AND SPEAR YOU LIKE A FISH fuck-awesome.

/tg/ Dinosaur Trivia

• Gary Gygax used a set of cheap "Prehistoric Animals" toys that could commonly be found in supermarkets in the 1970's as monsters during the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. The Owlbear, Rust Monster, and Bulette are all based off cheaply made Hong Kong plastic versions of dinosaurs.
• Some dinosaurs had feathers. The only ones who didn't were the oldest, such as Plateosaurus, and as a result didn't survive to see poofy dinos. Whether this is adorably awesome or ruins your childhood is subjective. (but really it's awesome)
• The famous Velociraptor was the size of a turkey, and likely hunted similarly to wolves. Although some would put anything that looks similar under the name "Velociraptor", the actual family is called Dromaeosauridae, or simply Raptors, of which Velociraptor is only one member (other genera include Pyroraptor, Microraptor, and Utahraptor).
• Some scientists believe that a relative of the Velociraptor called the Troodon may have used tools (not too surprising, some animals use tools today; tools as in "some birds, bugs and mammals use sticks and rocks to help them crack open or dig out their food"), and possibly had the intelligence of modern crows (for reference the American Crow is believed to be one somewhere in the top five most intelligent animals on Earth) and as we know: birds are dinosaurs. A small handful of scientists believe that had it not gone extinct likely due to lack of food, it could have evolved to become a human-like species.
• As described above, scientists consider birds to be dinosaurs. As a result their Clade, Avialae, are the dinosaurs that survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene Mass Extinction Event. Its a subgroup of Theropods, meaning those tiny bastards that wake you up at 6:00 am and the one who died to become your lunch sandwich are all cousins to the T-REX.
  • As an aside this also means that scientists agree on two things regarding the Chicxulub Impact, the asteroid that struck the earth 65 Million years, first that it was the most dangerous extraterrestrial impact in earth's history since life began, and two that this event hold the record for the most amount of birds killed with a single stone.
• Jurassic Park style resurrection (discover intact dinosaur DNA, inject into frogs, create hermaphrodite dinosaurs) may not be possible due to actual surviving DNA not being likely to still exist. Unlike mammoths and early humans who died in frozen temperatures and were naturally preserved like a big freezer and not long ago comparatively, dinosaurs went extinct in a hot climate with 66 million years to decay. Technically we don't find dinosaur bones, we find minerals which took the place of bones, remember that DM's if you ever find a necromancer in a natural history museum! However, scientists at Ivy League schools such as Yale and Harvard as well as research funded by the Chinese government have been progressing towards discovering existing ancient DNA in living birds then combining genes to create something that resembles a dinosaur (the process is similar to the creation of Glofish, created by using SCIENCE to hybridize jellyfish and Zebra Fish into an abomination that will probably destroy humanity).
• Dinosaurs lived on this planet for 177 million (1.7*10^8) years. 40k takes place in the 41st millennium. Even in the far, far future humanity has only existed for only about 2.25% as long as the dinosaurs had.
• Despite being real creatures that once existed there is substantial room for 'Your Dudes' when you imagine dinosaurs. You want to imagine Velociraptors building mating structures like bowerbirds? Go for it! Triceratops forming herds like buffalo to fend of T-Rex horns out? Not impossible! Protoceratops in trees? Anatomy suggest otherwise but hay, goats do it, So ya! Dinosaurs using tools? Hell some scientist things that New Caledonian crows, (an actual dinosuar!) may qualify for being in the stone age! We are currently living in the most exciting time for paleontology, as all kinds of old assumptions are being questioned and thrown out. We are a far cry away from the days of the slow lumbering, stupid crystal palace dinosaurs, and Dinosaurs are not just more interesting, they are weirder than they have ever been before.
• A lot of the skills used in the modeling and painting aspects of the wargaming hobby are the same skills used in preparing fossils. These include filling gaps with putty (used to fill gaps/cracks in bone), cleaning mold lines or filing down other unwanted plastic/resin (similar to removing matrix from a bone), and painting (painting casts of bones). If you REALLY love dinosaurs, hone your hobbying skills and volunteer at a museum. /a vertebrate paleontologist

Gallery

As a quick note: while the following gallery is of D&D monster images it still can give you a sort of snapshot of our evolving view of dinosaurs. Take for example the last four images of more modern path finder images as compared to the rest of the tail dragging doofious who look like they came straight out of the crystal Palace.

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  Tyrannosaur. 1e,

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  Triceratops. 1e

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  Allosaur. 2e

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  day 45: they still do not realize I am not a dinosaur.

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  Tyrannosaur and Triceratops. 2e

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  Utahraptor. Dungeon Magazine #54

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  Tyrannosaur. 2e

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  Anklyosaur PF

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  Deinonychus PF

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  Stegosaur PF

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  Tyrannosaur PF

See Also

• Great Knarloc - basically Kroot Dinosaurs.
• Squiggoth - fungal Dinosaurs bred by Feral Orks.
• Lizardmen
• Cold Ones Dinosaurs that Dark Elves ride.
• Tarrasque