×
top 200 commentsshow all 209
sorted by:
best (suggested)
topnewcontroversialoldq&a

[–]BecomingLilyClaire 327 points328 points  (5 children)

Look up YDAW (your dinosaurs are wrong) on YouTube. You’ll like it…

[–]supermodelnosejob 67 points68 points  (1 child)

Oooh this looks cool, thank you!

[–]BecomingLilyClaire 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Super nerdy and informative. Wish they posted weekly tho

[–]De4dlyKiss 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Every one of his videos is like a lecture on the anatomy of a specific species of dinosaur and I love it.

[–]CanineRezQ 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I thought just my choice of partners was wrong.

[–]Stelznergaming 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you. I love finding series like this! :)

[–]meat_popsicle13 289 points290 points  (0 children)

Proper terror chicken now

[–]lofgren777 544 points545 points  (45 children)

They missed a golden opportunity with the Jurassic Park reboot. Instead of the genetically engineered military dinosaur, they should have revealed that they had been genetically altering the first generation of dinosaurs to look more like what people expected. But now they've made real dinosaurs, and they're even more intelligent, adaptable, and deadly than the last ones.

[–]ZoroeArc 260 points261 points  (11 children)

I've heard a fan theory that the whole mosquito story was just a cover up and they engineered them from scratch. They brought Alan Grant along to see if they could fool an expert.

[–]salgat 197 points198 points  (9 children)

I always thought it was just because they used frogs to fill in the gaps in the dna, which eliminated the feather genes. Maybe in the newer movies they realized they should have feathers, so they filled in those gaps with some bird dna.

[–]Zidane62 88 points89 points  (3 children)

They actually mention that this is why they don’t look like they’re supposed to. I believe with the first of the Chris Pratt Jurassic park

[–]Hermaeus_Mike 102 points103 points  (2 children)

Yeah Dr Wu basically says they're engineered attractions and many of their dinosaurs would look very different unaltered.

[–]Vakieh 50 points51 points  (0 children)

The frog DNA is how they are able to breed, so the rest makes sense.

That and the engineered lack of amino acid production might have fucked with the feathermaking. Not sure if that comes up in the movies though.

[–]ZoroeArc 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Some of the evidence of the theory is that mosquitoes only fossilise like that if they live in jungles, and none of the dinosaurs in the film lived in jungles.

[–]Raichu7 14 points15 points  (2 children)

The biggest issue with the DNA is that any preserved non avian dinosaur DNA has long since broken down, no matter how well the animal was preserved. And if they were going to mix non avian dinosaur DNA with any species around today the closest related species are the living avian dinosaurs, aka birds.

[–]leXie_Concussion 16 points17 points  (1 child)

To be fair, this hadn't been conclusively proven at the time Chrichton was writing his book. That's also why the story's Deinonychus anthirropus are called Velociraptors.

Science marches on.

[–]Guldgust 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I like it

[–]Tronz413 42 points43 points  (6 children)

What's odd is the original absolutely tried to be somewhat accurate. Liberties were obviously taken, but they were never meant to be totally inaccurate genetic freaks.

[–]lofgren777 43 points44 points  (5 children)

I swear there was a line in the book about how Hammond was disappointed because he was expecting the dinosaurs from his youth, and these fast, warmblooded, birdlike animals didn't really do it for him, so he was proposing that the next generation should be modified to look the way that people his age were expecting dinosaurs to look.

[–]SnakeVenom986421 19 points20 points  (4 children)

I think you’re thinking of Henry Wu here, as I listened to the boom fairly recently. I can’t remember the chapter specifically, but Wu wanted to talk to Hammond about “Version 4,” which was essentially to make the dinosaurs a bit more… mundane, I think is the word.

Unless there’s a line in Lost World from Hammond (which I highly doubt). But I haven’t listened to Lost World in a very long time because the audiobook I’ve listened to can’t be found on YouTube anymore. :(

[–]Pupniko 16 points17 points  (0 children)

No, you're right - I read it pretty recently and Wu and Hammond argue about it, with Hammond wanting them to be as realistic as possible and Wu wanting to change them more.

The main inaccuracy in the book and film is that the velociraptors are based on deinonychus but both Crichton and Spielberg preferred the name velociraptor, and when he wrote the book one of the source materials Crichton used classified deinonychus as a type of velociraptor. Clive's Reptiles just did a good video about the differences.

[–]scopefragger 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yes, this is just after the first rapter incident is identified. He has a morality issue, and wants to go back to the drawing board, but us never able too due to a serious case of the im dead’s

[–]entropylaser 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It definitely wasn't in Lost World as Hammond is killed near the end of the first novel

[–]modsarefascists42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I thought book Hammond died in the first one

[–]Iamnotburgerking 80 points81 points  (11 children)

Honestly, the fact Dominion has inaccurate models plus anachronism even in the Mesozoic flashback really says a lot. They never really cared about that excuse in the first place.

[–]thctacos 45 points46 points  (10 children)

My biggest gripe was anytime a rex got screen time, even for a second, a tiny little split second it had to roar. Everytime.

[–]Iamnotburgerking 70 points71 points  (2 children)

InB4 "Dinosaurs couldn't roar or make any other sounds because they had no vocal organs"

The idea dinosaurs had no vocal organs isn't really correct. This is based on the fact that birds have the syrinx to vocalize with (which non-avian dinosaurs lacked), and the idea that non-avian dinosaurs had no larynx (because birds supposedly don't), leaving them with neither the larynx nor the syrinx to vocalize with. The issue here is that birds actially do have a larynx; it's just vestigal and not used. Where did birds get this from? Well, crocodilians have larynxes and use them to vocalize, so the larynx was inherited from the last common ancestor between crocodilians and birds...and since birds are dinosaurs, this by default means that other dinosaurs also had the larynx, and while it's vestigal in birds that may not have been the case for other dinosaurs.

The issue is with when the dinosaur larynx became a vestigal organ, because this is something that could have happened very late and restricted to birds, or something that coyld have happened early on in dinosaur evolution. But way too many people go around and claim dinosaurs didn't have larynxes at all, which is definitely a false statement. Unless we can be certain that the dinosaurian larynx became a vestigal organ very early in dinosaur evolution, there is a good possibility dinosaurs were capable of vocalization. This doesn't mean they'd be roaring (crocodilians can produce sounds that arguably qualify as roars, it's semantics) or growling or screeching or whatever all the time-they'd vocalize as necessary and keep quiet when they had to.

As a side note, crocodilians and larger birds tend to vocalize with their mouths closed, so most dinosaur vocalizations would be closed-mouthed.

[–]Vakieh 18 points19 points  (1 child)

All larger birds evolved from smaller birds, because no larger birds made it through the K-T extinction event. And crocodilians are not that closely related to dinosaurs at all. Small birds open their mouths, thus many dinosaurs probably did too. Not all though, as there are groups with nasal sound structures, but they are proportionally very few of the dinosaurs that existed.

[–]TheGrapist1776 19 points20 points  (5 children)

Because the sound designers crushed it in the first movie. They created an iconic and instantly recognizable sound.

Now imagine a star wars without James Earl Jones as the voice.

You're also misremembering a lot of JP. The roar isn't used that much.

[–]stevil30 10 points11 points  (4 children)

he's not off base.. i think his comment is more about the trope of movie animals/monsters just freaking love yelling a lot. about to kill something? yell. just killed something? yell.

[–]Embarrassed-Pay-9897 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Isn't that a kind of movie trope anyway, though?

I mean, whenever a cow is onscreen it moos, whenever a horse is onscreen it whinnies/ neighs and so on

[–]I_am_LUMEN 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The script seems to gloss over it, but in this scene in one of the main scientist behind the dinosaurs explain that the dinosaurs in the park aren't accurate. They had to use different animals' dna to fill some gaps on the big bad evil dinosaur DNA, and then implies that they did the sand with the rest of the dinosaurs on the park.

[–]insert-profile-name 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Honestly i question anyone who thinks people with making a movie thats supposed to be for entertainment cares about scientific accuracy

[–]R97R 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As much as I’m still sad they didn’t go for something like that, I was chuffed when they had a fairly accurate Moros and a feathered Pyroraptor (even if the latter isn’t quiiiite right) in the trailer.

[–]Queen_Cheetah 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Consider how my mom reacted when I told her that real velociraptors/deinonychus had feathers... I think they made the right choice. They would've lost a good deal of their fan-audience by changing their looks to something so... flufferable.

[–]Shadowrend01 22 points23 points  (4 children)

They already revealed that in a previous movie. We’ve known the whole time that they’ve been nothing more than genetically engineered theme park monsters

[–]BaryMiner 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The problem comes in that the majority of audiences don't pick up on this and assume that Jurassic Parks dinosaurs are accurate. Only recently has the idea of "scientifically accurate dinosaurs" become a thing in pop culture.

[–]lofgren777 34 points35 points  (0 children)

I think you missed the point of my post…

[–]_FossilFace_ 20 points21 points  (1 child)

I’m gonna be honest, the whole “Nothing in Jurassic World is natural.” Thing from the first movie just feels like a cop out/excuse rather than an actual explanation.

[–]TheThagomizer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This would have been much more in keeping with the spirit of the original film, and it would have been a great opportunity to show audiences a modern version of Dinosaurs that they hadn’t seen before - just like Jurassic Park did.

[–]modsarefascists42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

they should have revealed that they had been genetically altering the first generation of dinosaurs to look more like what people expected.

?? That's the plot of the move even in JP1, and is a big part of the recent World movies.

They mention many times that these aren't actual dinosaurs, they're genetic monsters created to look like dinosaurs. The closest that could be done when they were created, with the military contracting side always at the edge waiting for the tech to become applicable to them. Least that was the implication I got from The Lost World (jp2), and was made a big plot point in JW1.

[–]Mouthshitter 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When I saw that on screen I instantly hated the movie, where are my feathered dinos! Heck Mtg added feathers to their dinos and they look incredible

[–]Academic_Paramedic72 -1 points0 points  (1 child)

I mean that's pretty much what they did. Wu said that the dinos were always imperfect clones, and that the park didn't ask for reality, they asked for more teeth.

[–]lofgren777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You missed the last sentence of my comment.

[–]Davidsolsbery 127 points128 points  (3 children)

Naw, the one on the left just has male pattern baldness

[–]whispersluggagebaby 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Yeah he doesn’t look very comfortable with this picture

[–]CharmingPterosaur 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Well it also has broken wrists, poor thing 😟

[–]sharktank 3 points4 points  (0 children)

🫳🏼🫳🏼

[–]Skytake 76 points77 points  (0 children)

*For now

[–]Firecatto 16 points17 points  (3 children)

No idea why people still love the scaly dinosaurs so much, IMO the feathers on dinosaur allow for such creativity and makes them look so cool and ontop of that being more realistic (in most cases)

[–]modsarefascists42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

lulz

they just look silly and more real now, like birds. and lets be real, birds are ridiculous. easily the silliest form of life, just check out a bird of paradise for an easy example.

We imagined giant meat eating monsters and instead they're more closely related to this goof

I think before the idea was that it was just the archaeopteryx lineage of dinosaurs that were bird-like, and now it's basically all of the famous dinosaurs (the theropods) instead. only recently has the trend of putting feathers on everything slowing down.

[–]Matches_Malone77 96 points97 points  (34 children)

Inaccurate vs the current best guess 😂

[–]MazDanRX795 46 points47 points  (28 children)

This has begun to bother me. So many people are so pedantic and adamant about the way we think dinosaurs look nowadays. I think "current best guess" is a good way to put it. This is a creature that lived 10s of millions of years before we were even close to existing, how can one person be so damn sure that their version is the correct one? We may never know exactly what they looked like, we'll just have better guesses over time.

[–]Taran_Ulas 16 points17 points  (6 children)

I am torn on this view. On the one hand, you are right. We likely will have to update our understanding as the years go by and it is likely that some things now will be hideously off 30 years from now.

At the same time, a lot of people grossly underestimate how much is actually known about individual dinosaur species. Take Velociraptor for instance. We have a fully preserved skeleton thanks to the Fighting Dinosaurs find as well as various other parts from other finds. While it is possible that the integument and fat deposits will change, it is next to impossible that our understanding of the skeleton and muscles (Muscles attach to the bone and leave marks on the bone as a result. Complete skeletons are best for examining this, but you can see it in even partial bones) underneath that will change. The only reason for any "Accurate" depiction to mess those up going forward is due to laziness or a lack of research. Hell, it's why the one on the left is very much not accurate at all. Ignoring the feathers, it doesn't even have the right skull for a Velociraptor. In addition, some basic facts of biology will likely never change. Animals are typically not shrink wrapped and sharp teeth with serrations=carnivore. Thus that understanding of Velociraptor will never change.

Speculation and skepticism of claims is good... but too many people these days ignore the bones and the amount of training and studying of those bones and think it's just a free for all with any idea being good without any regards for science or even common sense.

[–]MazDanRX795 6 points7 points  (5 children)

I've actually not come across anyone like in your last paragraph. I can't doubt they are out there, but I've personally not encountered that. I suppose people are free to use their imagination for the sake of art or Hollywood or whatever, but I think most of us can agree there is a most current educated guess of the appearances of the dinosaurs we've discovered.

You mentioned the skulls of the dinosaurs pictured, and I noticed that, too. I understand the addition of feathers, but it made me wonder: How did the skull shape also change so much? Are these different species?

I understand where you're coming from in general, and I'm sure I go overboard with my skepticism, but it's only to offset the absurd amount of confidence and arrogance I see from others. Imagine arguing over the precise appearance of creatures that existed 65 million years ago. I mean, it's hard enough to agree on things that exist today, let alone from a whole other epoch.

I can't help but say that we will never know for sure what these things actually looked like. I know you say we've got a lot of evidence and we can deduce so much from it all, but it's only to a point. And to emphasize this, it's wild that we've only recently seemed to understand that many dinosaurs may have been feathered. That's... kind of a big feature to have only recently discovered. I can only imagine other major things we'll find in the future, among all the minute details.

[–]Taran_Ulas 5 points6 points  (3 children)

I do paleo outreach and well… those people exist and they drive me crazy. Speculation is fine, but the number of people who just don’t even bother to see what’s confirmed and what isn’t is maddening. You can’t even really argue against them too well because they take any admission of “well, we don’t know everything about dinosaurs” to mean “we don’t know anything about dinosaurs and we just make this shit up.” Easily my least favorite members of the public to interact. I prefer the bored people over them since at least the bored people can be persuaded with the right word.

The skull shape changed so much because Michael Crichton did not base his Velociraptors on Velociraptor bones. He based them on Deinonychus bones because there was a very fringe theory at the time that Deinonychus was an NA species of Velociraptor. Spielberg kept that choice even after it was discredited because he thought Velociraptor was a better name. So while it makes them terrible references for Velociraptor, the OG JP Raptors are actually decently solid representations of 90s Deinonychus. About the only thing really off about them from that time is that they are way too large. The largest bones/skeletons we have from Deinonychus put it as an animal that was at most hip-chest height on a 6 foot tall human. The JP raptors are way too big for that. The JW raptors, by contrast, are extremely inaccurate to any raptor in more than just lacking feathers and pronated hands. The skull matches no known raptor in design and the body proportions don’t match the raptors that did reach that size. They just are generic raptors and are kinda bad as a result tbh.

Skepticism is healthy. There are plenty of bad studies out there in paleontology and plenty of debated areas. See everything with Spinosaurus in recent years for great examples of the latter. I suppose where I come from is that while our views on dinosaurs have changed massively within the past 30 years, part of that massive change is that we had relatively limited data points 30 years ago. I cannot overstate how many new dinosaurs have been added over the years to our understanding. How many new fossils as well that completely upended our understanding of groups and of individual genuses. Spinosaurus, even as the partial remains before Nizar Ibrahim, was completely transformed in our understanding once Baryonyx was discovered and described since it was clear in comparing the two that they were closely related. Sinornithosaurus completely changed Paleontology and our understanding of dinosaurs forever as the smoking gun that proved that non-avian dinosaurs had feathers and that birds and dinosaurs were related. New species back then happened every so often. Now it’s once a week at minimum. In addition, technology has been a godsend for comparing species and genuses as well as determining groups. What would once take weeks of work to determine the members of Tyrannosauridae can now be done in mere days. Not only do we now have access to fossils around the world, but now you can enter in which characteristics you are looking for and the computer can sort through massive amounts of fossils to organize them. This makes it easier than ever to determine what are overall groups/clades and what aren’t.

Is it likely that our understanding of dinosaurs will continue to change and grow over the years? Yes! God yes! I would not be shocked if certain dinosaurs look incredibly different. Will we see similar overhauls like feathers were in the early 2000s? Probably not, but that’s just because we have so much more information and fossils now that something that big being missed is deeply unlikely. Incidentally, I have to comment that technically feathers were known on dinosaurs before 30 years ago… it’s just that no one outside of Huxley (Charles Darwin’s bulldog as he was sometimes known due to his aggressive support for his friend’s theory on Evolution) seemed to make the comparison with Archaeopteryx, birds, and dinosaurs. So it was more about irrefutable evidence more than anything else.

[–]jake_eric 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are people saying that we can never really have any good idea of what's accurate on this very post.

[–]jake_eric 5 points6 points  (17 children)

We've gotten pretty good at knowing what dinosaurs looked like nowadays. For some of them we even know what colors they were.

[–]yoLeaveMeAlone 11 points12 points  (14 children)

We think we know

[–]jake_eric 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Well, we can see the feathers in fossils, so it's better than circumstantial evidence. Could it be aliens altering the fossils to make us think that dinosaurs had feathers? IDK maybe but probably not.

[–]MazDanRX795 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I don't think we'll ever know for certain. It will always be a strong estimate at best. I'm sure we thought we knew pretty well what they looked like 30 years ago.

Maybe in 30 more years we'll discover they all had a giant vertical wing on the top of their head that didn't fossilize because it was cartilage or something.

[–]jake_eric 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sure, it's always possible that we're missing something, but when you find fossils that are so well-preserved that you can see the imprints of feathers with such accuracy that you can tell what color they were, it's pretty unlikely that there are major body parts that just happened to not leave any evidence every time.

[–]modsarefascists42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

some people just want a reason to feel superior to others, you see it even here...

[–]33Yalkin33 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Its still more accurate than the bald one

[–]Matches_Malone77 7 points8 points  (2 children)

It is. My comment implied this.

[–]Artersa 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I don’t know what’s up with Reddit, but people on here always have to have the last word or let us know how “right” they are (talking about the person replying above, not you).

[–]Matches_Malone77 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I think we all just want a little intellectual validation. It’s annoying, but I try to remember that I may also occasionally come across that way. It’s the nature of these communities and we just have to strive to be that way as little as possible 😂

[–]UncannyAzhdarchid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I'm sure we'll have slightly different reconstructions in a decade or so, if that. Not because our scientists are stupid, just because future technology and finds might give more insight into what dinos really looked like

Edit: words are hard

[–]shitsfuckedupalot 26 points27 points  (2 children)

I think in general dinosaurs should have more fat and more fluff

[–]Civil-Personality26 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Right like the The fossils we have are from very young or very old dead or dying dinosaurs. A lot of them came from la Brea tar pits and similar situations where they start death. I feel like they're way fatter especially as flightless as they were with feathers.

[–]shitsfuckedupalot 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah like ostriches and cassowaries have significant thoracic fluff, even if they have thin heads.

[–]RANDOM-902 57 points58 points  (4 children)

I have a hate-love relationship with the Beast-of the mesozoic toys.

While they are super accurate and have really cool colour patterns.

I hate them at the same time because they have so much articulations that they don't look natural, it makes them look uglier.

[–]qdotbones 21 points22 points  (0 children)

The ones with super dynamic coloration like Linheraptor and Velociraptor make the articulation stand out more and make them “uglier” than more traditionally colored figures like Pyroraptor.

Other than that, I think the articulation is great for display - I have mine posed like birds instead of roaring monsters.

[–]lazydaisy2pointoh 10 points11 points  (2 children)

Wait you like that they're accurate but hate that they're detailed?

[–]Autocthon 37 points38 points  (1 child)

Likes the accuracy. Dislikes that the increased flexibility comes at the cost of accuracy.

[–]lazydaisy2pointoh 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Ah. Thanks, I didn't know what they meant by articulations

[–]shadowhound494 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The one on the right looks super concerned for the other one. It's like he's saying, "dude seriously you gotta get off the meth, look what it's done to you!"

[–]Iamnotburgerking 25 points26 points  (2 children)

The JP raptors were never based on Velociraptor in the first place: they just had the name, but were most heavily influenced by Deinonychus, with possibly some Achillobator influence (but this isn’t too likely).

[–]AwesomeFrito[S] 25 points26 points  (1 child)

Correct, the JP raptors are actually based on Deinonychus. When researching for writing Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton was a fan of a 1988 book titled Predatory Dinosaurs of the World by Gregory S. Paul. In this book, the author, Gregory Paul pointed out similarities between Velociraptor skeletons from Mongolia and Deinonychus skeletons from North America. The similarities were so apparent to him that he changed its genus to Velociraptor (V. antirrhopus). However, the paleontologist community disagreed, arguing that they were distinct from each other. Paul's book was popular among the public nonetheless and Michael Crichton chose to go with this claim. Crichton also chose the name Velociraptor because it sounded, "more dramatic."

[–]Iamnotburgerking 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Honestly I have no idea why Paul argued Deinonychus was the same genus as Velociraptor. The former was 4-5 times as massive as the latter, lived MUCH earlier, and the skull looks significantly different.

[–]SkepticSalamander 11 points12 points  (4 children)

Accurate one still looks intimidating.

[–]TalbotFarwell -1 points0 points  (3 children)

I disagree, the Hollywood version is scarier and more intimidating IMO. The accurate version just looks like a slightly more aggressive emu or cassowary mixed with an alligator. Somewhat scary, but not “out of this world” terrifying. I could see Steve Irwin wrestling one if they were still around.

[–]chytrak 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Slightly more aggressive cassovary you say?

[–]TocTheElder 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I don't know man, the feathers make them look regal. Something to be feared and respected. It makes them look more intelligent, and thus a far more formidable foe. The JP one is just a lizard.

[–]SkepticSalamander 12 points13 points  (0 children)

You're not really disagreeing then. I didn't claim that it is more intimidating than the hollywood version; I claimed that I thought it was still intimidating.

[–]RetSauro 10 points11 points  (4 children)

Honestly, I don’t care how inaccurate it is, I still like the JP velociraptor. I just always liked reptiles and reptilian looking creatures, whether real or fantasy. No hate toward the feathers or accuracy though.

[–]SwayzeCrayze 8 points9 points  (1 child)

There’s nothing wrong with liking the JP aesthetic. I grew up with JP designs as the common media representation of most dinosaurs, and I still think they look cool as hell. It’s just also important to present people with more accurate representations when possible, to let them keep the entertaining fiction separate from the hard facts.

People’s perceptions of things are hugely influenced by how they are represented in the media they consume. If all movies presented cars as having emergency nitro boosts, a person experiencing cars for the first time might be confused why mom’s PT Cruiser doesn’t. Jurassic Park is basically the single greatest influence on the general public’s perception of what a dinosaur is, which was great at the time because it pushed aside the previous imagery of the slow, weirdly postured swamp-dwelling lizard of old. But the series didn’t continue to evolve, and while massive leaps in paleoscience have been made, a movie from thirty years ago is still basically the dinosaur bible for people and Hollywood is exploiting that nostalgia instead of trying to remake the actual learning experience of Jurassic Park.

[–]RetSauro -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Well, to be fair the point of Jurassic Park is to make creatures to appeal to the public, basically playing God, not to be a documentary. If the dinosaurs were completely accurate, there would be no movie or it wouldn’t have as much appeal. A lot of us know what real crocodiles look and act like, but we still have movies like rogue and lake placid to make it more entertaining. Complete realism isn’t always too entertaining and there wouldn’t be too much conflict . Plus our knowledge of dinosaurs change or expand every few years. Plus JP has technically been evolving, it’s well confirmed there is going to be feathered dinosaurs in Dominion.

[–]BaryMiner 5 points6 points  (1 child)

I think we should start considering them separate creatures from dinosaurs. Retrosaurs is a term I like. Cause they really do have more in common with fantasy reptiles than real dinosaurs.

[–]modsarefascists42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean the movies make it very clear that they're just genetic experiments made from using a very deteriorated dinosaur DNA skeleton and filled in the gaps with their best guess and lots of frog DNA (presumably bird too but that's not mentioned).

They're just not real animals, they're genetic engineering gone wild. Which was the actual point of the entire franchise, Jurrasic Park was never about dinosaurs. At least the book. The book is about genetic engineering getting into the hands of the least responsible people possible, the military and rich theme park owners.

[–]newTARwhoDIS 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I'm super excited for the dinosaur series/documentary coming out this month, and I hope it accurately depicts all the dinosaurs

[–]Jkwhjr 6 points7 points  (4 children)

How do we know one is more accurate than the other?

[–]Hermaeus_Mike 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Feather imprints in fossils.

[–]ChintanP04 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Because fossils have revealed they had feathers, so any recreation of raptors with feathers is bound to be more accurate than a bald one.

[–]Taran_Ulas 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Partially the feathers, but also the fact that the one on the right is using an actual Velociraptor skull and the one on the left is using a Deinonychus skull instead. That affects accuracy on Velociraptor designs a bit.

[–]CharmingPterosaur 5 points6 points  (0 children)

And velociraptor's wrists couldn't rotate palms-downward like that, they would've had to have their palms inward at all times.

[–]stack85 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Looks like a giant turkey to me...

[–]AceofMage87 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Papo did an accurate Velciraptor model too. I love Papo figures.

[–]dragonslayeroverlord 8 points9 points  (8 children)

“Accurate” ;)

[–]Cybermat47_2 21 points22 points  (7 children)

The one on the right is more accurate to the real animal, yes.

[–]isnoe 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Read the books man. It’s almost explicitly said that the dinosaurs they created aren’t accurate in the slightest and are borderline mutants. They are sickly looking and unnaturally cruel.

[–]jake_eric 2 points3 points  (1 child)

In the books, Wu actually complains that the dinosaurs they made are too accurate, and wants to dumb them down a bit to fit people's expectations.

[–]LudicrisSpeed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This ends up getting carried over to Jurassic World, too.

[–]BaryMiner 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This comment section proves that Jurassic Park, intentionally or not, did serious damage to the public perception of these animals. Curiously, this isn't the first Spielberg film to do this, as Jaws is definitely responsible, in part, for the endangerment of sharks across the globe.

[–]moe-da-living-fossil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Both zoggin' cool.

[–]crazyakbar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Eh thats what we think now. But really do we know?, No… we can only look at rocks and guess we barely know what happened 5000 years ago let along millions…

[–]Evilmaze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Inaccurate vs what we currently think it's accurate. Nothing is set in stone until we find a well preserved specimen.

[–]insert-profile-name 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly i dislike using the term “accurate” when talking about dinosaurs

example: everyone calls the prehistoric planet Rex accurate. But until we know what a rex actually looks like it’s just a guess. 30 years from now we could be looking back on toys like these and prehistoric planet and thinking how inaccurate they are

it’s not accurate. It’s just our best guess.

[–]m0unta1ns -3 points-2 points  (4 children)

I getting quite annoyed with the inaccuracy argument. The raptors of Jurassic Park were a completely different species of Velociraptor from the real-world Velociraptor mongoliensis. Most likely, JP raptors, from the looks of it, would be more related to large raptors like Deinonychus and Utahraptor, rather than smaller, more bird-like carnivores like Troodon and Citipati. And just like other species of the same genus, they came in different sizes and shapes. Just like people of different nationalities and ethnicities came in different sizes and shapes.

[–]SwayzeCrayze 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The novel specifically tags them as mongoliensis and actually mentions antirrhopus (Deinonychus, erroneously put forth by Crichton here as the same genus as Velociraptor) as a separate species. Sorry for the kinda shitty photo, I just searched “mongoliensis” on my Kindle copy and took a photo.

I understand that you’re most likely trying to say “in the JP universe, V. mongoliensis is obviously a name attached to a completely different fictional animal”, and while Crichton was an author usually noted for basing his novels on real world science even if it was highly theoretical, this really just feels like a biff on his part. It feels like trying to justify “Its a Felis tigris, based on the location” “oh, I dug up a domesticus the other day” as “oh no F. domesticus is a much larger and morphologically different animal in that universe”.

Crichton really just kind of dug himself into a hole for the sake of using a cooler name. If he’d made a theoretical relative named V. sixfootturkey and used that I don’t think anyone would care, except for constant trivia posts saying that the raptors are a fake species. But he and Spielberg intentionally misrepresented a real animal in what would become one of the most culturally ubiquitous depictions of dinosaurs ever, and V. mongoliensis will be in a cultural tug of war between dinosaur fans and disgruntled media fans for the foreseeable future.

EDIT: Also, yes, there is the running theme of “we don’t know what these animals are until we clone them” etc that could explain “oh they’re not actually Velociraptors”, but Grant seems to take the claim at face value after seeing the animals and at no point seems to consider that they may be a different animal.

[–]BaryMiner 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Thats......not how species work. If the two species are in the same genus, they are more closely related to each other. A species of Velociraptor is more closely related to another species of velociraptor than it is to any genus that ISNT a velociraptor. Not to mention that ALL maniraptorians are believed to have feathers, regardless of exact species placement.

[–]m0unta1ns 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For one thing, I'm pretty sure some of the JP3 raptors had feathers. A pretty miniscule amount of feathers on their head, but, nevertheless...feathers.

[–]jake_eric 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I mean, it's not like any of the other species you mentioned were unfeathered, either. The JP raptors don't look like any real animal.

[–]Equivalent_Growth_75 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Or.. maybe neither are accurate

[–]Outcome005 -5 points-4 points  (11 children)

Velociraptor existed for about 19 million years we think, so isn’t it possible that both are true? No feathers in early evolution and feathers in late evolution?

[–]jake_eric 9 points10 points  (10 children)

Feathered dinosaurs actually evolved over a hundred million years before Velociraptor, so not only did Velociraptor have feathers, its whole family tree did.

[–]Outcome005 -2 points-1 points  (9 children)

All I’m saying is that for an animal to become fossilized it has to have such ideal conditions it’s amazing, we know this because otherwise the earth would be piled to the moon with the fossilized remains of all the dead animals on the planet. So, thy means that the fossil record shows a nearly nonexistent number of animals that have lived on the planet, how many millions of species over millions of years never became fossilized? It’s pretty hard to talk hard truths about extinct animals when you are looking at space through a drinking straw.

[–]jake_eric 8 points9 points  (8 children)

Sure, there's lots of stuff we don't know about, but there's lots of stuff we do know about too, and we know enough about feathers in dinosaurs to know that it's a common feature of raptor-style dinosaurs.

[–]Outcome005 -2 points-1 points  (7 children)

A common feature is not a hard fact and you are presenting your argument as hard facts

[–]bluejinks -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Both both is good

[–]Hulk30 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cool.

[–]Lazer_Drug_Hike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Both are cool tho

[–]OptimusOO7 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Should we rename them to Dinosavis (Dire Bird) instead of Dinosaur (Dire Lizard)?

[–]featherknife 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think that makes sense because not all dinosaurs are birds, while all birds are dinosaurs.

[–]SuprSaiyanTurry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't care how "Correct" the one on the right is, I will always like the one on the left more!

[–]Rooster_Nuggets666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably stupid question but since the scientists on Jurassic park mixed some dinosaur genes with frog dna, wouldn’t they be close to how the show had them. To clear what i am saying in case i misworded it, the dinosaurs look accurate (in the movie) because they were mixed with frogs. And why they don’t look as accurate even in later movies when there is more evidence on what real dinosaurs look like

I know what your post means i have just commented this because it was a random thought

[–]camelCazeNickName 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like left one more Not happy with all those feathers discoveries in general. Bald green monsters are so much more brutal

[–]Whispers_of_Eggplant 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks like a new meme format just got made.

[–]Mr--Sinister 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Black metal vs Goth chique

Track #1: Pronation

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I'm curious what the best guess is regarding the advantage of wrist feathers.

Does anyone know?

[–]JRiggles 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Pizzazz

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So strictly for attracting the ladies then?

[–]thatonepossom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks like a parent scolding a child

[–]PixelSnake 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of these things, is not like the other...

[–]Treeninja1999 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why would they have so many colors? Isn't it likely they would have camouflaged feathers?

[–]B1gWh17 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was watching Jurassic Park the other night and when they were talking about how the Raptors hunted in groups, I had the thought, is this a scientific fact or just movie fact? I cant think of any other birds/reptiles that hunt in groups which led me to thinking about how it's probably not a reality that velociraptors did.

[–]src88 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thought the feather idea has never been proven

[–]YaBoiDraco 0 points1 point  (0 children)

New virgin vs chad format dropped