Dinosaurs!

[Trenton.]

So what do you think happened to the dinosaurs? I'm partial to the Meteor theory myself.

[Actaeon]

Alien abduction. Actually, I find the P-Tr to be much more intriguing.

[The Mystic]

My guess would be the meteor impact.

 

According to the show Ancient Aliens, a bunch of UFOs came down and wiped out the dinosaurs.

[Alorael at Large]

I am not a paleontologist, but most paleontologists seem to support variations on the impact event hypothesis.

 

—Alorael, who will go with what he knows, which is going with what the experts claim to know. So there you go.

[Randomizer]

It's a little known fact that dinosaurs were the first intelligent race on the Earth and built rocket ships and left before the meteor.

[Triumph]

Dinosaurs never existed. They are a conspiracy to mislead us about what THEY are really digging.

 

Edit:

 

Although...

 

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

It's a little known fact that dinosaurs were the first intelligent race on the Earth and built rocket ships and left before the meteor.

 

I think there was Star Trek: Voyager episode that used that premise.

[Dikiyoba]

Short answer: Dinosaurs haven't gone anywhere. Birds are dinosaurs, and there are plenty of them around today.

 

 

Long version: The consensus among paleontologists is that a meteor impacted the Earth at what is today Yucatán, Mexico. (Map of the resulting Chicxulub Crater and surrounding area.) Non-avian dinosaurs may or may not have been experiencing a decline in diversity prior to the impact--the evidence isn't conclusive and paleontologists don't agree--but non-avian dinosaurs had small declines and recoveries occasionally throughout the Mesozoic Era, so the answer doesn't make a huge difference either way. There may or may not have been other impacts or giant volcanic eruptions around the same time acting in concert with the Chicxulub Crater meteor.

 

Either way, the impact caused natural disasters worldwide and sent massive amounts of dust into the atmosphere. The result was the total collapse of food chains. Plants and phytoplankton had no light, herbivores had no plants, carnivores had no herbivores, and only organisms that didn't need much food and that could feed on the resulting decay or the decay-eaters survived. Non-avian dinosaurs and most branches of birds (among many other casualties) didn't make it, but the Neornithes birds did, and they've had 65 million years to evolve into new forms and niches (with some smaller declines and extinctions along the way). Also, to practice looking awesome.

 

"Hey, I'm awesome. Also a dinosaur. Get over it."

 

Dikiyoba hasn't been paying enough attention to dinosaurs to know the latest details, but that's the general gist of it.

[Sudanna]

[Actaeon]

The idea that birds are a direct descendent of dinosaurs isn't as universally accepted as it used to be.

 

Also, I think I've given everyone else more than adequate opportunity to post:

 

 

It ought to be Trenton's avatar.

[Randomizer]

The truth about what really happened.

What they are doing now.

[BMA]

I can't get this cartoon out of my mind.

 

It showed a group of dinosaurs going around smoking tobacco.

 

*

 

+1. As for the stuffing the mailbox cartoon, it was only recently that I realized what it was all about.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

The idea that birds are a direct descendent of dinosaurs isn't as universally accepted as it used to be.

Among who? Most mainstream paleontologists and other scientists agree that birds are dinosaurs, as far as I can tell. If anything, the evidence is stronger now than it has been as more non-avian dinosaurs are found with feathers and other elements of formally bird-only anatomy and physiology. There's a lot of disagreement over what qualifies as a bird, with Archaeopteryx (among many other species) in or not in the bird clade depending on how the evolutionary family tree is put together, and a lot of disagreement on when and how the first bird evolved, but very little over whether birds are dinosaurs.

Dikiyoba.

[Actaeon]

Originally Posted By: BMA

I can't get this cartoon out of my mind.

It showed a group of dinosaurs going around smoking tobacco.

That's from the Far Side. A true classic.

It's a cladistics thing, Diki. It's beginning to look like they branched off earlier. A minor technicality. Here is a mediocre article until I can find a better, peer reviewed one.

[ex post slarto]

According to Wikipedia, the view in that article is the minority view among paleontologists.

 

If we want to establish the paleontological consensus, I'm not sure we need a better article, because there will be good articles supporting multiple views. We need someone who understands the current views of paleontologists.

[Cairo Jim]

I was going to bring up crocodiles and the like, but since I can't remember how they fit in to the whole dinosaur picture, I haven't a leg to stand on.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Cairo Jim

I was going to bring up crocodiles and the like, but since I can't remember how they fit in to the whole dinosaur picture, I haven't a leg to stand on.

Crocodilians and dinosaurs are archosaurs, so they are more closely related to each other than they are to other reptiles like turtles and squamates (lizards and snakes). That makes crocodilians useful for comparisons and a good outgroup when doing cladistics, so crocodilians and dinosaurs tend to get mentioned together a lot.

---

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

A minor technicality.

Minor? Really? If non-avian theropods aren't the ancestors for birds, then what is the ancestor of birds? Are you arguing that birds gave rise to dinosaurs or that birds and dinosaurs are entirely separate and not closely related? What do you do with extremely birdlike theropods like Velociraptor? Are they birds but not dinosaurs? Dinosaurs but not birds? How do you explain the similarities between birds and theropod dinosaurs? What characters are you going to use to demonstrate relatedness when you create your new clades and what evidence do you have to back them up? What makes them better supported than the characteristics of the accepted birds-are-dinosaurs clade? It would turn almost everything we think we know about reptiles in the Mesozoic upside-down. That's hardly minor.

But don't take Dikiyoba's word for it. Take a paleontologist's word for it.

[Actaeon]

I actually don't agree with the argument put forth in the article. The prevailing explanation seems, to me, to be well supported. It is not, however, absolute fact. Very little is when it comes to paleontology, or science in general. I am wary of our tendency to take it for granted that anything less throughly supported than gravity is worth telling only one side of.

[Dantius]

You are all missing the obvious explanation.

 

...

 

[Painted Lady]

Randomizer - that was hysterical. I actually had to program in COBOL once.....

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

The prevailing explanation seems, to me, to be well supported.

Except it's not the prevailing opinion and it doesn't have much evidence to support it. (Seriously. Show me some evidence that birds evolved separately from dinosaurs. Actual evidence, not misdirection or speculation.) There are basically two paleontologists (Feduccia and Ruben) generating the "controversy" by doing shoddy research and then running to the press with their results. Most vertebrate paleontologists agree that the evidence supports the theory that birds are descendents of maniraptoran theropods. Here's another article that includes a list of features that maniraptors and birds share but that are not typical of other non-avian dinosaurs.

Dikiyoba won't be around for a few days but will return to this thread on Monday.

[Actaeon]

... I'm confused. I was under the impression that we were on the same side of this issue.

 

I fear that I have talked myself into trying to defend an assertion I don't agree with.

[nikki.]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

... I'm confused. I was under the impression that we were on the same side of this issue.

Now *I'm* confused. I thought you were saying we shouldn't readily believe dinosaurs became birds? And I thought our resident dinosaur expert gave us the current consensus reached by paleontologists (which is to say birds are totally dinosaurs, yo)?

Well. Before your last edit it wasnt clear you disagreed with the argument you were defending. Now it's less confusing.

[Actaeon]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

I actually don't agree with the argument put forth in the article.

I really should have been smarter than to go up against Dikiyoba on a dinosaur issue. Or, if I was going to bring up the dissent in an effort to add color to the discussion, I should have opened with the point Dikiyoba made- that the prevailing theory remains by far the best supported. If you read my previous posts in that light, perhaps you'll see what I was going for. I am working on improving the clarity of my discourse. It's not the first time something like this has happened.

Sorry, all.

[adc.]

You do NOT remember what did just happened?!

---------

-Once a upon a time, there were 4 dinosaurs named: DinOpera, Godzilla Firefox, Stegoogle Chrome and old Ichtornet Explorer. Suddenly, the evil mouse cursor thinggy, opened the Secret Program file meteor and deleted all their .dll(s). Then the evil mouse cursor thinggy opened them, they all crashed because they were missing the .dll(s). From that time, humans in the name of Jeff Vogel, decided to place Shaperism in every persons mind to change the pre-history and turn it into fyoras instead of 4 dinosaurs. Eventually, a few were just interested from that act. And that happens until now, but, today, it is either Avernuism/Avadonism...

------------

-And that day forward, a bunch of animals, in one place is called a zoo. Unless it's a farm., Nightwatcher

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: Nightwatcher

And that day forward, a bunch of animals, in one place is called a zoo. Unless it's a farm.

Or, you know, nature.

[nikki.]

Or a butcher's shop. Really, we could go all day.

[keira]

There is one specific species of animal that is very prevalent. You can find it just about anywhere.

[Alorael at Large]

Let me interpret: Actaeon posted suggesting there's a not entirely incredible but minority opinion that rather than avians being a clade of dinosaurs, the arrangement of phylogenetic branches is a bit different, more flightless dinosaurs evolved from bird-like ancestors, and... I don't really understand the article that well. Yes, the ancestors of dinosaurs were to some extent birdlike given that their descendants are birdlike.

 

—Alorael, who went to nature to pick up a few steaks. Some disassembly was required, though, so he gave up and ate fruit instead. The packaging's much better.

[Mod.]

Crocodiles won the war with dinosaurs.

 

We're next.

[keira]

I beg to differ.

 

We've got the best of the best on our side.

[Lauren CW]

Never thought a topic about Dinosaurs would make me laugh so hard.

Feel like a total badass because Dinosaurs are awesome therefor talking about them makes you awesome, yes.

[Erebus the Black]

Originally Posted By: Future Wonderbolt

There is one specific species of animal that is very prevalent. You can find it just about anywhere.

Mites?

[keira]

Close. It's an invasive species that originated in Africa. It's known for its tendency to build large geometric hives.

[Cpt. Charles]

Ants? Bees? Termites? Humans?

[Aran]

Originally Posted By: Admiral Alex

Ants? Bees? Termites? Humans?

Got it in four!

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

"Hey, I'm awesome. Also a dinosaur. Get over it."

Dikiyoba hasn't been paying enough attention to dinosaurs to know the latest details, but that's the general gist of it.

Sure that no non-avian species remains? The elusive Dikiyora scribens comes to mind.

[Cairo Jim]

Originally Posted By: Admiral Alex

Bees? Humans?

I was thinking bees myself, but then I thought bees don't seem that invasive do they? Also, the humans thing made me laugh.

[Rowen]

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: Sylae

Back in my day the history channel was about Hitler, not driving on ice and crabbing.

FYT

[Actaeon]

Thankfully, Hitler IS history.

[nikki.]

Originally Posted By: Rowen down the river

snip

Nicholas Cage, is that you?

(aww man, now I'm reminded of AtCT. we didn't make that joke enough)

[Cpt. Charles]

Humans are the only ones that have invaded the eighth continent. The internet.

 

(A country in that continent, Facebook, rivals other lands with its huge population of over 800,000,000 members. The small country of Spiderweb Software Forums grows steadily larger, however, and currently holds only some 600 shy of 10,000 members!)

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Cairo Jim

I was thinking bees myself, but then I thought bees don't seem that invasive do they?

Killer bees! (Plus, regular European honey bees are a bit invasive where they've been introduced because they compete with the native bees.)

Dikiyoba.

[Cairo Jim]

I knew that they can occasionally be a small problem. I've just never heard them being an invasion problem. Or anything more than an allergy problem.

[ex post slarto]

"Was it an African honey bee?"

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

Or, if I was going to bring up the dissent in an effort to add color to the discussion, I should have opened with the point Dikiyoba made- that the prevailing theory remains by far the best supported. If you read my previous posts in that light, perhaps you'll see what I was going for. I am working on improving the clarity of my discourse.

No problem. Although if "birds might not be dinosaurs" is the most colorful thing you can think of, something has gone wrong somewhere. Probably some combination of paleontologists not explaining their discoveries well, the media giving most of their attentions to the most dramatic discoveries (which gives crackpots and bad science undue credence, since those tend towards the dramatic), and laypeople more interested in the myth of dinosaurs as badasses rather than as they actually were (Jurassic Park/XKCD raptors vs small, feathered raptors, although Jurassic Park did an okay job with the science of its day).

And if you want overly literal color, have an Anchiornis, since we know what color and pattern of at least some of the population was.

If you want only metaphorical color, have more Naish on freaky sauropod front feet. (It blew Dikiyoba's mind, at least.)

[Actaeon]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

...although Jurassic Park did an okay job with the science of its day).

Even so, they might have clarified that they were talking about something like a Utahraptor or Dieinonychus. Eschewing the feathers was understandable, but it doesn't take much scientific research to infer the size of a Velociraptor when you have a fossilized specimen.

[Rowen]

I spent a few hours reading things from dinosaurs, to prehistoric sea creatures, to the Permian–Triassic extinction event, to the Siberian Traps, to the Wilkes Land carter, to the Bedout crater, and rounded it off with a visit to Philosophy. I must say, I enjoyed the geology reading more then any of the other bits. I find fossils to be cool, but rocks just rock my world.

[Trenton.]

EDIT: Sorry, picture fail. Hold on while I try to tinypic it...

 

EDIT EDIT:Bahh x.x My computer is a fail. Forget this post happened.

[Erebus the Black]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

If you want only metaphorical color, have more Naish on freaky sauropod front feet. (It blew Dikiyoba's mind, at least.)

Why do you find them weird? in nature as in nature, anything can form if it can perform its rudimentary function

[Rowen]

I didn't see mention of Dinotopia in this thread. How can we talk about Dinosaurs with out talking about Dinotopia? That's were I learned most of my dino knowledge.