Tsintaosaurus as portrayed
Copyright © 2000 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
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Tsintaosaurus as portrayed |
Good news! Dinosaurs did not go extinct, as we have believed for so long. Instead, they just moved to the Internet. A recent check of the word dinosaur with a popular search engine returned almost 200,000 sites—dinosaur humor, dinosaur art, dinosaurs and religion, dinosaur poems, dinosaur games. There may even be a few dino-porn sites, but I quit excavating before I found them. The dinosaurs that did not reach the Internet just detoured to Hollywood, where, since the earliest silent films, they have been perennial crowd pleasers. On Memorial Day weekend of this year(2000), the Disney Studios will open the most expensive dinosaur film of all time, imaginatively titled Dinosaur, in which the dinosaurs will speak in the voices of major Hollywood actors. |
So, it might be a good time, before getting swamped with all that accompanies a new Disney film, to rove way back in time and rave about the ancient critters. For a long time, dinosaur has been a synonym for an Edsel, a sort of dead end, but scientists tell us that dinosaurs lived on and even dominated the earth, for some 180 million years, almost three times as long as they have been extinct.
Europeans first identified dinosaur fossils in the 1820's. Long ago, the ancient Chinese identified dinosaur fossils as the remains of ancient dragons, and to this day, dragon bone is a prescription in traditional Chinese medicine.
It used to be thought that all dinosaurs were huge, but we now know that some, such as the Compsognathus, was the size of a chicken. Over the years, however, scientists continue to find fossils of ever larger dinosaurs. Some speculate that the largest dinosaurs simply never quit growing as long as they lived.
Way back in the prehistoric times when I was a kid, I was typically crazy for dinosaurs, and I treasured my collection of dull green and gray and brown dinosaur figures (which I recently learned would now be worth about a hundred dollars apiece). Nowadays, however, scientists think that dinosaurs may have flaunted colors as gaudy as modern coral snakes or macaws. No one knows what colors the dinosaurs were, so scientists make guesses based on the colors of living animals, whose colors function either for camouflage or display. The Ornitholestes, a small, fast meat-eater, for example, might have been colored somewhat like a jaguar, not that there is any family relationship between the two but simply because the jaguar is a small, fast meat-eater occupying a similar niche in its environment.
The Hollywood dinosaurs are always in fine voice, roaring and bellowing as they attack skyscrapers and cars—not that any dinosaur ever saw a skyscraper or a car. No one knows if dinosaurs even made sounds. Since the organs with which animals make sounds would not fossilize, we may never know if dinosaurs even made sounds.
We know almost nothing of dinosaur behavior, of course. We can distinguish carnivorous (meat-eating) dinosaurs from herbivores (plant-eaters) by the shape of their teeth. But that basic information does not give us much to go on. Some modern carnivores, such as lions, live and hunt in groups, while others (tigers) do not. Living in a group is advantageous for large herbivores, such as elephants, so some scientists think it would have been similarly advantageous for herbivorous dinosaurs, but again, we do not know for sure.
As with modern animals, there were apparently many more herbivores than carnivores, since only about ten percent of dinosaur fossils discovered so far are of carnivorous animals. Even the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex is represented by fewer than twenty specimens. (It is said, by the way, that T. rex's arms were so short that if his chin itched, he could not scratch it—which may account for his bad attitude.)
Dinosaurs are given tongue-twisting, confusing names. The word dinosaur, literally, "terrible lizard," is misleading, because scientists no longer consider dinosaurs very lizard-like. Dinosaur names do give a variety of information. Some names are based on the names of the people who discovered the fossils (Liliensternus is named for Dr. von Lilienstern), the place where the fossils were found (Utahraptor), characteristics of the dinosaurs themselves (Ceratosaurus, "horned-dinosaur"), or the condition of the fossils (Saichania, "beautiful").
When I was a kid, Brontosaurus was one of my favorites, but now, he no longer exists, even in extinction. Scientists now say that the fossils dubbed "Apatosaurus" were from the same kind of dinosaur as those called "Brontosaurus" two years later, so Apatosaurus wins by a nose--which might be quite a significant distance for such huge animals.
From our earliest acquaintance with them, we've expected dinosaurs to entertain us. About a century and a half ago, with the opening of a great exhibit of concrete dinosaur models in England, a grand dinner was held with the guests sitting inside a partially completed model of Iguanodon. This is the dinosaur with enormous spiked thumbs, which at the time was portrayed with the spikes on his head. Dinosaurs have figured in such cartoons as Alley Oop and The Flintstones, although scientists say that humans came onto the scene about sixty million years too late to interact with dinosaurs.
The fascination with dinosaurs shows no sign of ending, and new scientific and technological advances simply give us new ways to learn about them and to present them, from a recent IMAX film to so many Internet sites. Scientists continue the unglamorous task of sifting through dinosaur sites, looking for any remains, from bones to droppings (coprolite). They use scientific instruments to measure their finds. Other scientists interpret the information with computer programs and comparisons with living animals. Finally, all the information and opinions come together as we try to form a picture of animals in their natural environments, interacting with each other.
The more we learn and speculate about dinosaurs, those amazing animals that came in so many different sizes and shapes (and, for all we know, colors), the more we can appreciate their millions and millions of years of success on this planet. It can be very humbling to wonder if we will last as long.
There is a great gallery of vintage dinosaur pictures, and you can also access a list of pages with photos of models of dinosaurs. From that second link, you can also hear dinosaur names pronounced... with a southern accent. Dinosaur World is a Florida theme park trying to unseat the unbeatable mouse with a T. rex or two.
Follow the links to get started as an Internet paleontologist. Keep your feet dry, so as to leave no fossil tracks behind you, your heart full of noble thoughts, and your good selves far from anything that may lead to extinction… and since no one knows for sure what caused the dinosaurs to go extinct, be very careful.