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Comprehensive list of popular dinosaur misconceptions (warning: sarcasm)
Hello, fellow list members. As sort of a follow-up to my 2006 post about
popular dinosaur misconceptions, I have prepared an even more extensive
look into what the average person "knows" about dinosaurs. Feel free to add
things and comment on it, or to either laugh or cry depending on your
reaction.
1. All dinosaurs lived at the same time.
2. Dinosaurs mostly lived in palm tree-filled jungles with a lot of swamps
and the occasional lava-spewing volcano.
3. Plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, and other marine reptiles were dinosaurs.
4. Dimetrodon was a dinosaur.
5. Prehistoric mammals were dinosaurs.
6. Pterosaurs were dinosaurs.
7. Pterosaurs were birds.
8. Pterosaurs were the ancestors of birds.
9. Birds are not dinosaurs, even if they are descended from them. (What, do
they magically stop being dinosaurs at some point?)
10. Dinosaurs and ?cavemen? lived at the same time.
11. Dinosaurs and Ice Age mammals lived at the same time.
12. _Carcharodon megalodon_ lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.
13. Oil consists of dinosaur remains.
14. Dinosaurs were preserved in the La Brea tar pits.
15. Dinosaurs commonly died in tar pits.
16. Sites that preserve several dinosaur skeletons are usually the result
of a cataclysmic volcanic eruption/flood/pit full of quicksand/etc.
17. The Ice Age killed the dinosaurs.
18. Bipedal dinosaurs walked ?Godzilla-style?, with dragging tails.
19. Sauropods were semiaquatic.
20. Brontosaurus is a valid name. (Why is this a misconception?
Brontosaurus was already invalid in 1950-1960 when most people heard about
it. Granted, the name change was published in a really obscure paper, but
surely other papers mentioned Apatosaurus since then and the curators at
the museums labeling their skeletons "brontosaurus" should have been aware
of the error. Just why did it take until 1974 for the information to get
out?)
21. Brontosaurus was renamed Apatosaurus because it had been reconstructed
with the wrong type of skull. (in actuality, this mistake wouldn?t have
made the name invalid!)
22. Brontosaurus didn?t exist.
23. Brontosaurus was renamed Brachiosaurus.
24. Brachiosaurus didn?t exist.
25. Every sauropod is a Brontosaurus.
26. Every theropod over 30 feet long is a Tyrannosaurus rex.
27. Every theropod between 8 and 30 feet long is a Velociraptor.
28. Every theropod less than 8 feet long, including Velociraptor, is a
?compy?.
29. Every large bipedal dinosaur is a Tyrannosaurus rex.
30. Every chasmosaurine is a Triceratops.
31. Every stegosaur is a Stegosaurus.
32. Velociraptor was six feet tall or more.
33. Velociraptor did not have feathers.
34. Velociraptor was as intelligent as modern dolphins or chimps.
35. Velociraptor is known to have hunted in packs. (Deinonychus maybe, but
no evidence for it has been found for Velociraptor.)
36. Velociraptor never existed, it was made up for Jurassic Park.
37. Tyrannosaurus had poor eyesight.
38. Tyrannosaurus could not hunt living prey.
39. Dilophosaurus was venomous.
40. Dilophosaurus had a neck frill.
41. Dilophosaurus was half its actual size.
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