105 replies to this topic

[OtterLord]

Just post the Dinosaurs you like most, Place pictures and info, basically just talk about your favorite Dinosaurs!

[Yelekiah]

Unenlagia comahuensis

"The most bird-like dinosaur ever discovered is the 90-million-year-old Unenlagia comahuensis, a flightless, 4-foot tall, 7.5-foot-long carnivore. It is the size of an ostrich, but shaped like Velociraptor"

Sorry, I couldn't find a more menacing picture of the "Halb Vogel",
or half-bird.
http://leute.server.de/frankmuster/U/Unenlagia1.jpg

Edited by Yelekiah, 22 September 2005 - 07:39 PM.

[OtterLord]

Best picture of the Unenlagia comahuensis that I could find. Even if it is a sketch.

[nick_fury]

Raptor time!


Meaning of Name Speedy Thief
Size 6 feet long, and 3 feet tall
Weight  about 15 to 33 pounds
Features 30 very sharp, curved teeth in a long, flat snout, an s-shaped neck long thin legs arms with three-fingered clawed hands and four-toed clawed feet
Lived Late Cretaeceous Period
Diet meat eater
Locomotion run up to roughly 40 mph
Where Found Mongolia, Russia, and China

Don'cha wish your Dino was cool like mine, well don'cha?

Edited by nick_fury, 22 September 2005 - 08:12 PM.

[Yelekiah]

lol, thank you, Otterlord. They were supposed to be real smart like raptors.
(thinks back to Jurassic Park)
I found some more info from a site someone showed me.
"The structure of the forelimb suggests that the avian mode of the forelimb folding, and the extensive forelimb elevation necesssary for powered, flapping flight, was already present in cursorial, non-flying theropod dinosaurs. Unenlagia does resemble Archaeopteryx in important details of its forelimb and hip. Foremost among these is the structure of the shoulder joint, which indicates that the animal could hold its arm directly outward, like a bird, as well as fold it against its body. "

Neat stuff about the correlation between dinos and birds.

Edited by Yelekiah, 22 September 2005 - 08:21 PM.

[Nadal]

GIANT GROUND SLOTH
Megatherium (pronounced MEG-ah-THEER-ee-um) was the largest giant ground sloth; its name means "great beast." Megatherium was a huge, bulky, slow-moving herbivore (plant-eater) with peg-like teeth, powerful jaws, and a thick, short tail. This ice-age mammal had three hook-like claws on each hand. It was primarily a quadruped (walked on four legs). It may have eaten leaves from the tops of trees while standing upright on its hind legs, using its tail to balance. Megatherium was the size of an elephant. It lived during the Pleistocene epoch in what is now South America, going extinct about 11,000 years ago. It was about 20 feet (6 m) long and weighed roughly 3-4 tons. Megatherium was named by R. Owen in 1856; the first Megatherium fossil was found in Brazil in 1789. (Cohort (many grouped orders) Edentata, Family Megatheriidae, Genus Megatherium)

[wabbit]

Albertosaurus was a theropod from the late Cretaceous period at the end of the Mesozoic Era.

The Theropods were fast, two-legged carnivores (animal eaters) with short arms. The following are Theropod characteristics:

• Speed and agility
• Carnivorous diet
• Sharp, slicing teeth and well-developed jaw muscles
• Bipedal walk
• Strong legs with bird-like, three-toed, clawed feet
• Hollow bones (like birds).

Length: 28 feet (8.5 m)
Height: 10 feet (3 m)
Weight: 2.5 tons (2300 kilos)
Speed: 40 km/hr

This fleetness, combined with obvious physical strength, would have made Albertosaurus a fierce hunter, perhaps even more so than the more massive Tyrannosaurus rex.

Smaller but longer-limbed than Tyrannosaurus rex, Albertosaurus would have been a mobile hunter, although it probably fed on the carcasses of already dead animals as well.

Albertosaurus bones were among the earliest dinosaur remains collected in Alberta. A skull found by J.B. Tyrrell in 1884 was the first important dinosaur fossil to be discovered along the Red Deer River. It was named in 1905, the same year that Alberta became a province. Since then, many Albertosaurus fossils have been discovered. the smallest documented Albertosaurus, a juvenile less than a quarter of the size of a full grown adult, was collected from Sandy Point on the South Saskatchewan River in 1986.

[indeed]

Im going to pick one out of left field here ...


Dimetrodon.




Dimetrodon's most distinctive characteristic is the spectacular sail on its back. The sail was probably used to regulate body temperature; the surface area would allow it to warm up or cool off more efficiently. It may also have been used in mating rituals and to ward off other predators. The sail was supported by neural spines, each one sprouting from an individual vertebra.

Dimetrodon was a dominant carnivore, the largest of its day. It grew to up to 3 meters in length. Dimetrodon means "two-measures teeth"; it is so named because it had a large skull with two different types of teeth (shearing teeth and sharp canine teeth), as opposed to the dinosaurs. It walked on four side-sprawling legs and had a large tail.

Dimetrodon was a member of a group of animals we call synapsids. Just behind the eye socket in this skull is an opening, called the synapsid opening. Its purpose is not known for certain, but it may have been a passage for jaw muscles that helped Dimetrodon and other synapsids chew.

One other group of animals has this synapsid opening -- mammals. So the 280-million-year-old Dimetrodon is actually one of your early relatives, and another step on the path to your own evolutionary branching point.

[draconic chronicler]

Spinosaurus Aegyptus is my favorite, and even before it was made famous by the Jurassic park III  film.  Maybe someone else can post a good pic.

Its teeth are very common and you can buy them on ebay, but complete skeletons are extremely rare.  This seems to be the biggest (longest) carnivorous dinosaur ever found, and said to be 60 feet in length.  Unforunately, the bones of this monster were destroyed in Berlin during WWII.  Whereas most therpods dinosaurs have a similar general appearance, Spinosaur is unique in its great sail fin, fairly large forearms, and long, crocodile like snout.

[Rare and Unusual Human Creature]

I love them all! They're so amazing to me, and I'm glad to see this forum. I have a special place for the really huge long necked sauropods, and also for the giant meat eaters like the T-Rex. But all the smaller ones are so unique and fascinating too.

Incidentally, there's some beautiful dino drawings on this page (it's the place where I got my current avatar image): Dino Art

Edited by Rare and Unusual Human Creature, 25 September 2005 - 01:18 PM.

[MadEyePixie]

I've always been fond of Velociraptors because of how cool they looked and how intelligent they were.

Info about 'em.

[Charlie_0978]

Maslodont Astrotopitecus Reicontivus

[snuffypuffer]

 
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Elasmotherium
[Categories: Rhinos, Prehistoric mammals]
The Giant Unicorn (Elasmotherium sibiricus) was a  (Massive powerful herbivorous odd-toed ungulate of southeast Asia and Africa having very thick skin and one or two horns on the snout) rhinoceros which stood two meters high and six meters long, with a single two-meter-long horn in the forehead. Its habitat was the steppes south of the range of the  (Extinct thick-haired species of arctic regions) Woolly Rhinoceros. It may have weighed up to 5 tonnes. Its legs were longer than those of other rhinos and were designed for galloping, giving it a horse-like gait. It was probably a fast runner, in spite of its size. Its teeth were similar to those of horses, and it probably grazed low herbs.
Due to a lack of fossils from any date later than 10,000 years ago, the Giant Unicorn is usually regarded to have become extinct at that time, together with many other species of  (Click link for more info and facts about megafauna) megafauna.

Historical witnesses?
Elasmotherium probably died out in prehistoric times.

However, according to the  (Click link for more info and facts about Nordisk familjebok) Nordisk familjebok and to space scientist  (Click link for more info and facts about Willy Ley) Willy Ley, the animal may have survived long enough to be remembered in the legends of the  (A member of the Tungus speaking people of Mongolian race who are a nomadic people widely spread over eastern Siberia; related to the Manchu) Evenk people of  (A federation in northeastern Europe and northern Asia; formerly Soviet Russia; since 1991 an independent state) Russia as a huge black bull with a single horn in the forehead.

There is also a testimony by the medieval traveller  (Click link for more info and facts about Ibn Fadlan) Ibn Fadlan, who is usually considered a reliable source, which indicates that Elasmotherium may have survived into historical times. (Click link for more info and facts about Ibn Fadlan) Ibn Fadlan's account states:

There is nearby a wide steppe, and there dwells, it is told, an animal smaller than a camel, but taller than a bull. Its head is the head of a ram, and its tail is a bull’s tail. Its body is that of a mule and its hooves are like those of a bull. In the middle of its head it has a horn, thick and round, and as the horn goes higher, it narrows (to an end), until it is like a spearhead. Some of these horns grow to three or five ells, depending on the size of the animal. It thrives on the leaves of trees, which are excellent greenery. Whenever it sees a rider, it approaches and if the rider has a fast horse, the horse tries to escape by running fast, and if the beast overtakes them, it picks the rider out of the saddle with its horn, and tosses him in the air, and meets him with the point of the horn, and continues doing so until the rider dies. But it will not harm or hurt the horse in any way or manner.

The locals seek it in the steppe and in the forest until they can kill it. It is done so: they climb the tall trees between which the animal passes. It requires several bowmen with poisoned arrows; and when the beast is in between them, they shoot and wound it unto its death. And indeed I have seen three big bowls shaped like Yemen seashells, that the king has, and he told me that they are made out of that animal’s horn.

Some have argued that the survival of Elasmotherium into historical times may be the source of the  (An imaginary creature represented as a white horse with a long horn growing from its forehead) unicorn myth, as the animal's description fits well with the  (An empire in southern Asia created by Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC and destroyed by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC) Persian karkadann unicorn, and the  (Any of the Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in China; regarded as dialects of a single language (even though they are mutually unintelligible) because they share an ideographic writing system) Chinese zhi unicorn.

[http://www.absolutea...smotherium.htm]

[Kesenai Tsumi]

Since my fav, Unenlagia, has already been covered i'll do...

General Info
Name: Therizinosaurus (Scythe lizard)
Classification: Theropoda; Coelurosauria; Therizinosauridea
Length: Unknown, maybe up to 36 feet (11 m)
Weight: Up to 6 tons.
Hieght: Around twice that of a modern adult human.
Lived: Late Cretaceous perios, 70-65 million years ago.
Fossils
First found: 1948. Thought to be remains of giant turtle. Teeth, incomplete forlimbs, a large claw, and some hind limb/foot fragments.
Fossils discovered in: Mongolian desert and northern China.
Best Specimin: Enormous arm and sholder blade in central Mongolia.
Facts
- So strange that it was placed in it's own group.
- Weird structure may have made Therizinosaurus have looked like it was sitting down when it's back was straight.
- 2-foot claws (.06 m) on 8 foot (2.5 m) arms. Very strong arm and shoulder muscles.
- Most likely used claws to strip tree bark.
- May have had proto-feathers.

[Fluffybunny]

There is only one dinosaur in my book: