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Dinosaur Artwork of the Day


frogfish

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That was a fictional dinosaur Jurrasic Park made up...Currently, no dinosaur spits venom. It was just added for theatrics.

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Rajasaurus-Prince of India

Raja-Hindii word for Prince

wrong.. Dilophasaurus is a REAL dinosaur, its just not as small as they make it look and it doesnt have the neck fin or spits out venom

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wrong.. Dilophasaurus is a REAL dinosaur, its just not as small as they make it look and it doesnt have the neck fin or spits out venom

I never said Dilophosaurus wasn't real. I just said the dinosaur in JP wasn't real. Dilophosaurus was 15 feet long. Its closest relatives are Megapnosaurus, Coelophysis, and Rugops Primus.

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giganotosaurus_vs_argentinosaurus

That is actually an amaragasaurus. The Argentinosaurus are in the background.

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Rugops Primus.

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Hey froggy.

What's that Dinosaur that spits venom in your face like a cobra! Post a pic if you got one! :tu:

I realize we have already had the art of the day, but I just thought I'd sneak in this request.

Dilophosaurus, the animal, was real. What Frogfish meant was that it did not have a frill and it did not spit venom. It was, in fact, much larger than shown in the film (15 feet at the shoulder) and was the top predator of its environment. The jaws are weak compared to tyranosaurus, but they are designed for neatly slicing through meat rather than ripping and tearing. Think of them as a large pair of scissors.

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-Pilgrim

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They don't know for a fact it didn't spit venom, do they?

Nice pics in this thread, by the way.

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They don't know for a fact it didn't spit venom, do they?

Nice pics in this thread, by the way.

Yes and no. It wasn't venomous in the sense that it injected venom with a bite; that would require hollow fangs, or at least a groove to direct the venom. Nothing even remotely resembling that has been found in any dinosaur, and it is believed that venom didn't evolve until later.

However, it is possible that it could spit venom. That would require only a venom gland; glands don't fossilize, so we can never know for sure that it didn't have one.

That said, the odds are very much against it. As I said, dilophosaurus was an apex predator; it was the biggest, baddest, strongest dinosaur around. It had no use for venom because it could out-muscle its prey. Modern animals in a similar position as dilophosaurus - lions, eagles, crocodiles, etc - are, without exception, non-venomous. The only even remotely venomous apex predator is the komodo dragon, which is not venomous but its saliva contains lethal bacteria. Even then, the dragon kills by biting, not spitting, as the bacteria requires an open wound to infect the bloodstream. Furthermore, the closest living reletives of dinosaurs are birds. No birds are venomous, which suggests that the line of dinosaurus that gave rise to birds - and dilophosaurus is a close reletive of that line - probably also lacked venom.

Thus, while we can't say with absolute certainty that they were non-venomous, we are about 95% sure.

-Pilgrim

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Thanks for the info. I still hold out a slight hope that they could have been venomous... wasn't it the crest that made Crichton develop that theory? They didn't know what the crest was for, and he thought it contained venom... er, or something? :hmm:

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I realize we have already had the art of the day, but I just thought I'd sneak in this request.

Dilophosaurus, the animal, was real. What Frogfish meant was that it did not have a frill and it did not spit venom. It was, in fact, much larger than shown in the film (15 feet at the shoulder) and was the top predator of its environment. The jaws are weak compared to tyranosaurus, but they are designed for neatly slicing through meat rather than ripping and tearing. Think of them as a large pair of scissors.

user posted image

-Pilgrim

Thanks man for the input. I like the Dilophosaurus that your describing! But.... i still like Jurassic Parks Spitting Cobra Dinosaur ;):yes:

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Thanks for the info. I still hold out a slight hope that they could have been venomous... wasn't it the crest that made Crichton develop that theory? They didn't know what the crest was for, and he thought it contained venom... er, or something? :hmm:

The idea was twofold. One, Chriton wanted to make dinosaurs seem less like monsters and more like animals (this was the 1970's, remember, when dinosaurs were still widely seen as lumbering giants that ate anything they could catch). Two, he knew that dilophosaurus had weak jaws compared to other large theropods. From this he reasoned that it may have been venomous and thus didn't need muscular jaws. It was a bit of artistic license. In my opinion, it was a minor point and the story was rather well-told and interesting, so I can't complain much if he got a few things wrong.

The film version was considerably less accurate, and did not address advances made in the field since the book was written. At the time of the novel, dinosaurs evolving into birds was an exciting, radical new theory. By the time of the film it was widely accepted and not especially controversial.

As for dilophosaurus's double crest, most likely it was used for sexual display and identification. It was too small to serve as a thermal regulator. As a warning display it would have been superfluous - as the biggest bully on the block, dilophosaurus was already frightening enough. However, it does make it easy to differentiate potential prey from a potential mate.

-Pilgrim

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As for dilophosaurus's double crest, most likely it was used for sexual display and identification. It was too small to serve as a thermal regulator. As a warning display it would have been superfluous - as the biggest bully on the block, dilophosaurus was already frightening enough. However, it does make it easy to differentiate potential prey from a potential mate.

:yes:

One of my favorite dinosaurs:

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Therizinosaurus

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Sinovenator

SG7, may I ask you just to post the picture and the name? Could you be as kind to go and edit your post to keep the format of this thread?

The fourth link that Pilgrim posted was incorrect. Microraptor could never fly.

Edited by frogfish
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The fourth link that Pilgrim posted was incorrect. Microraptor could never fly.

True. I simply grabbed the first four or five pictures that looked halfway decent. I make no claims as to their accuracy, they just look pretty.

-Pilgrim

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microraptor may have been able to fly. More resaurch needs to be done.

There has been adequate research. The bone structure is not strong/light enough for flapping. There are too little feathers found on Microraptor to generate lift.

Edited by frogfish
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There has been adequate research. The bone structure is not strong/light enough for flapping. There are too little feathers found on Microraptor to generate lift.

While I would not deny that far more research needs to be done on Microraptor before I would feel comfortable speaking about it in terms of absolutes, it does not appear to have been capable of flight. Rather, it appears to have been a glider. It has been proposed that the asymetrical feathers on both pairs of wings point to the presence of at least some degree of powered flight, however, and recent examinations of the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx have suggested that it, too, may have had semi-functional wings on its rear legs. At any rate, it seems clear at this point that if microraptor was, in fact, capable of true flight, it was not very good at it. The wings are not well designed for prolonged flight and the arms were not muscular enough for the sort of vigorous flapping needed to take off. More likely the creature launched itself from a high tree, perhaps gave a few flaps, and landed in a nearby tree.

I think that it would be safest to say that it was primarily, but perhaps not totally, a glider.

-Pilgrim

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