Talk:Dinosaur/Archive 6

message: To preserve the intelligibility of conversation here I have once again moved older discussions on this page to the archive (Archive 5 linked just above). Killdevil 18:30, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archived talk

message: Killdevil -> I somewhat shrunk this section because I find it is becoming rather long and messy: it looks like a list of unrelated news events which have been independently added each time a fresh research news was available. In my opinion this section should be rewritten in a more concise way and the detailed information should be found on separate pages such as Feathered dinosaurs or Dinosaur-bird connection. (Currently, whole paragraphs are duplicated with some inconsistencies). So in short: I did not delete information but moved it to more specialized pages. --Ollivier 17:29, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Feathered dinosaurs section

message: Some bits of text I have some problems with:
:"Dinosaurs were an extremely varied group of animals; according to a 2006 study, 982 dinosaur species have been identified so far, and 1,844 species are believed to have existed."
I checked the refs and altered the numbers and ranks accordingly because in the state above it doesn't make much sense regarding my knowledge of the subject.
:"The first direct evidence of herding behavior was the 1878 discovery of 31 Iguanodon dinosaurs which perished together in Bernissart, Belgium, after they fell into a deep, flooded ravine and drowned."
I was under the impression that the skeletons accumulated over time. IIRC there were at least two levels of skeletons in the Bernissart coal mine. After a bit of searching I found this pertinent article:
*Johan Yans, Jean Dejax, Denise Pons, Christian Dupuis, Philippe Taquet. Palaeontological and geodynamical implications of the palynological dating of the wealden facies sediments of Bernissart (Mons Basin, Belgium). C. R. Palevol 4 (2005) 135–150.
The meat of it is in French so I'll have to work a bit disentangling the relevant bits of text. I can tell one thing for sure: It wasn't a ravine where the Iguanodon fell but one of the many sinkholes existing in the area at the time. Come to think of it, it stands to reason it should be so, as usually a ravine has a way out: downstream.     
:"Also among the earliest dinosaurs was the primitive Lagosuchus"
I'm pretty sure Lagosuchus isn't a dinosaur, though a dinosauriform, and not even a particularly well defined genus. Barring the likely chance "dinosaur" is being used a shorthand for anything ornithodiran more closely related to Dinosauria I'd propose Marasuchus for the place and that it'd be stated that it is a close relative of dinosaurs. 
Oh and let it be know that the edit made on the article by User:193.136.225.26 is mine and that it is related with this post. I like to preview a lot and I do have to go to the men's room on occasion ;P Dracontes 10:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good stuff. Killdevil 05:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Large dinosaurs would presumably have had to deal with similar issues; their body size suggest they lost heat relatively slowly to the surrounding air, and so could have been what are called inertial homeotherms, animals that are warmer than their environments through sheer size rather than through special adaptations like those of birds or mammals. However, so far this theory fails to account for the vast number of dog- and goat-sized dinosaur species which made up the bulk of the ecosystem during the Mesozoic period.
It also fails to account for how the animals in question, sauropods, would regulate their temperature  before they got to that size in the first place, IMHO, as they did start quite small. Dracontes 15:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Snippets in contention

message: Re erect limbs (under "Other shared anatomical features"), reptiles with sprawling limbs can move about as fast as similar-sized mammals with erect limbs. The main advantage of erect limbs is that they eliminate Carrier's Constraint (new article needed), so that the animal can breathe efficiently while moving. This gives animals with erect limbs greater stamina than animals with sprawling limbs.
Re dino metabolism, a lot of the bone structure and soft tissue evidence is ambiguous and / or disputed. For example some of the bone structre features are found in a few cold-bloded reptiles and not in some mammals. And the specialist paleontology sites are full of debates about whether some fossilised features represent e.g. 4-chambered hearts or just artefacts of the fossilisation process.
In my opinion the best arguments for "warm-blooded" dinos (i.e. metabolic rate comparable to that of mammals of similar size) are:
*   limb posture
*   Antarctic dinos
*   dino growth rates
Sprawling limbs are efficient for a creature that spens most of its time flopped on its belly and only moves for a few seconds at a time, because they minimise the costs of getting up and lying down but make the animal subject to Carrier's Constraint. Erect limbs are the opposite - they avoid Carrier's Constraint, but increase the costs of of getting up and lying down (in mammals, which mostly have very flexible backbones, they also pump the lungs when running; but most dinos had short rigid backbones, like birds, so would not have enjoyed this additional advantage) - so erect limbs are a disadvantage for a sluggish animal and an advantage for an active animal. In addition, dinos were fundamentally bipeds, and bipedalism makes getting up even more laborious as it removes the option to get up one end at a time (as cows do). So I think erect limbs + bipedalism indicates an active lifestyle and high metabolic rate.
Dino fossils have been found in areas which were within the Antarctic Circle during the Mesozoic and show signs of having had regular frosts. Cold-blooded reptiles can only survive frost by burrowing and hibernating, but the fossil dinos were fairly large by modern standards and we've found no evidence of burrowing dinos. So it appears dinos could generate adequate heat in these conditions, which indicates a high metabolic rate.
Studies of T Rex' lifecycle (e.g. http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=1067, http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/HistoryofLife/CH12.html, http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/0505/0505_feature.html, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15347508&query_hl=1) indicate that it grew in 3 stages: (a) slow growth up to 1 ton weight at about age 10; (b) rapid growth to 5-7 tons at about age 16, an average increase of a ton per year(!); (c) negligible growth after that. Stage (b) indicates a fast metabolism - compare with crocs, which take 15 years to reach sexual maturity and a lot longer to reach full size. I've seen no growth timescales for sauropods, but I've seen many arguments that they would have had to grow fast (at least at some stage), as their eggs range in size between a large melon and a basketball and most sauropods reached 30 to over 100 tons at maturity depending on species.
I've also just seen a paper (http://palaeo-electronica.org/1999_2/gigan/discus.htm) which argues that oxygen isotope ratios in the bones of adult T Rex and Giganotosaurus indicate a rapid metabolism but that this was achieved by inertial homeothermy (because distal bones show "cooler" isotope ratios). So it would be interesting to see whether there have been similar studies on smaller dinos (e.g. Velociraptor, ornithomimids). And of course inertial homeothermy would not have worked for juvenile dinos.
Wkipedia ought also to reference http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php?title=A_Reply_to_Ruben_on_Theropod_Physiology&printable=yes.  This paper summarises and criticses Ruben's argument that dinos lacked respiratory conchae (aka nasal turbinates), which since its publication in 1996 has been one of the most-quoted reasons for believing that dinos were ectothermic.
Philcha 17:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Erect gait; warm-blooded dinosaurs 

message: Just found http://www.physorg.com/news73665780.html, in which the researchers say that their lifecycle data on Albertosaurs does not suggest super-fast growth in the teenage years.
BTW I also wrote the last post ("Erect gait; metabolism"), but forgot to sign it.
Philcha 18:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dino growth lifecyle 

message: :While many mainstream scientists respect these views as faith positions, they argue that religiously-inspired interpretations of dinosaurs do not withstand serious scientific scrutiny. See the referenced article for specific examples and further context.
The first sentence says that religious views on dinosaurs don't agree with scientific views (using clumsy and vague weasel language, too), and the second says "see main article". Both are entirely redundant. If nothing substantial can be written in this section, I suggest just moving the link to the "See also" section. Fredrik Johansson 06:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I feel that this section is totally OK. It is important subject to be mentioned in article plus it give reader brief explanation of what is ref article about. And, you forgot to site first sentence;)  TestPilot 17:49, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the archives for an extremely lengthy discusson of how to handle mentions of religious positions in this article.Dinoguy2 18:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Rewrite it then, and we'll see if it's any better. John.Conway 08:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, now I see why this article is protected.--71.194.243.97 05:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh, you should read the archives ::) Dinoguy2 13:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two stupid sentences 

message: Why there is no mention of the "Jesus horse" phrase? It is a matter of fact that America has powerful sectarian groups that want to demote dinos to fit their seventh day flat earth agenda. The article should have a section explaining religio-political controversy about dinos and mention the Jesus horse. It is unacceptable to censor wikipedia articles just to hide american stupidity! 195.70.48.242 08:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're probably trolling, but there is an article on religious perspectives on dinosaurs. Also, the phrase doesn't appear to be very common, or notable. John.Conway 11:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't the whole "Jesus horse" thing from an SNL skit? Probably only worth a mention on a pop culture section of the dinos and religion article, if anything.Dinoguy2 22:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Censorship protest! 

message: Dinosaurs have become a part of world culture and remain consistently popular, especially among young boys. 		This was changed from children to young boys. My problem is that there are many young girls that enjoy learning about dinosaurs and i fail to see the reason for the change. If any evidence can be provided that this edit was justified then by all means, change it back but as it is-i've left it at children. Greebo cat 01:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly support Greebo cat's position on this, it's popular with "children". --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 00:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Agreed , but I think it's even better without the especially..., everyone likes dinosaurs (and I'm not just being facetious, I think it's true). John.Conway 11:07, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed to adults and children alike-unless someone else has a better idea as to how to put it? Would welcome suggestions...Greebo cat 18:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad someone has their "thinking hat" on; I just smacked myslef in the head with a "D'oh! Why didn't I think of that?" Good move! --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 18:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

text: No, but especially does imply that more of the specified group have an interest in the subject than other groups which is unsourceable (if that's a word!) and unlikely to be true. A huge number of adults are interested in paleontology which is demonstrated by the popularity of the dinosaur article and it's wide range of editors so i think it's best left as it is at the moment-as long as that's the general concensus? (don't want to be seen as a little wiki hitler or anything!) Greebo cat 13:20, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Only boys like dinosaurs?

message: This should be almost entirely removed, as there's a more complete page about the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event:
*The "dinosaurs" page is pretty long anyway, so there's no room here for a through analysis of the extinction.
*The K-T extinction is complex - other groups died out or suffered heavy losses at the same time, but some groups survived very well.
*At present the "dinosaurs" page gives too much prominence to the Alvarez impact hypothesis - it's a good theory, but by no means the only one.
Philcha 00:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As per my answer below, this section should also stay. This is only an overview & may alter the article seriously if it is removed. Spawn Man 01:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Extinction of dinosaurs

message: The "dinosaurs" page should try to explain why the late Maastrichtian fossils were all pretty large - the smallest appear to have been Troodon and pachycephalosaurus.
This is relevant to the extinction mystery - no purely land animals bigger than cat survived. If there had been small predatory dinosaurs in the late Maastrichtian, I'd have expected some of them to have survived by eating invertebrates and small mammals.
Philcha 00:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While there were many large dinosaurs during the Maastrichtian, there were small ones, too. Small dinosaurs from that stage  include: Struthiosaurus (7-8 ft long), Adasaurus (8 ft), Noasaurus (8 ft), Microhadrosaurus (8-9 ft), Anserimimus (12 ft), Ornithomimus (12 ft), Gallimimus (13-20 ft), Quilmesaurus (16-20 ft),  Dryptosaurus (20 ft), Indosuchus (20 ft), and one of the smallest sauropods, Magyarosaurus (20 ft). Best wishes, Firsfron of Ronchester 02:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Not to mention the birds. Most small animals seemed to have survived, on sea, land, and air (the small pterosaurs had all diappeared gradually for millions of years before the K/T, only azhdarchs were left at the end), while most big things died.Dinoguy2 01:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, guys, but the examples you quote are only "small" relative to other dinosaurs, but much larger than the purely land animals that survived the K-T extinction. The questions behind my question were - I should have made them explicit - : (A) Were there any cat-sized or smaller dinosaurs, especially at the very end of Cretaceous? (B) If none, why not? (C) If there were, why did they not survive the K-T extinction? Their food chain would have been detritus-based rather than photosynthesis-based, and they would have required less food to maintain a viable population.Philcha 18:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The smallest non-avian dinosaurs probably -were- no smaller than cat-sized; I've not heard of any. It may be an inherent part of their physiology - perhaps the way they evolved their endothermy, the average dinosaur simply could not evolve to be any smaller than cat-sized - too low of a mass may not have enabled them to keep their body warm enough for their physiology to function properly. The birds got around this restriction, got smaller, and survived the KT extinction. Most likely there were small non-avian dinosaurs which didn't fossilize well; smaller and more fragile creatures don't fossilize as well as critters with giant bones/teeth/shells. Its also quite possible that by that point in time, the dinosaurs had evolved away from being small at all; it may have been competition from mammals, birds, small reptiles, ect. made it difficult or impossible for dinosaurs to evolve to be terribly small due to competition. According to our current knowledge, even the smallest dinosaurs were no bigger than cat-sized, and that's on the upper size limit of what survived - luck of the draw may have eliminated the last non-avian dinosaurs. Or maybe their endothermic physiology didn't allow for them to survive the impact in some way. Maybe the reason all modern animals sleep is that only creatures which could sleep survived the KT impact, hibernating through it, and that those which could not perished. Maybe dinosaurs had to eat too much food. Its not as if extinction is entirely nonrandom; an event like a meteorite impact can cause harsh competition, and it is possible that the few dinosaurs which WERE small enough to survive simply got outcompeted and went extinct. Or maybe someday we'll find tiny dinosaurs hiding in some swamp; some cryptozoologists think it actually is that way. Titanium Dragon 10:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you mean by "cat size", but the smallest known dinosaurs were under 2ft long, most of it tail--much smaller in overall mass than an average cat. See Smallest Theropods in the article Dinosaur size. As you correctly point out, many of the smallest dinosaurs probably never fossilized. The smallest currently known, 6in-1ft scansoriopterygids, lived in trees and so are especially unlikely to encounter the right conditions for fossilization. Dinoguy2 16:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

text: "(A) Were there any cat-sized or smaller dinosaurs, especially at the very end of Cretaceous?" Yes, again, birds. The problem with taking birds out of the equation is that small dinosaurs, for the most part, belonged to one group--the coelurosaurs. The coelurosaurs of the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous became the birds of the late cretaceous, just as the ornithopods of the LJ/EK became the hadrosaurs of the LK. So, the answer to question C is that "they did survive the extinction". It's no coincidence, IMO, that the one group to survive--neornithes--were all shorebirds at the time. Seagulls are among the most abundant and generalist birds alive today. The neornithes of the LK were probably the same way, which is why they survived and all the other bird group of the time (troodontids, dromaeosaurids, enantiornithes, ichthyornithes, hesperornithes, etc.) died out. The former two groups were already "living fossils" of the early Cretaceous as it was. Non-avian dinosaurs as a whole were relegated mostly to the island continent of North America, and were basically the marsupials of their time when the extinction occurred. Dinoguy2 16:51, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

text: The discussion so far appears to confirm my original point - the earliest dinosaurs and some Jurassic dinos (e.g. Compsognathus) were about the size of chickens, but all known Cretaceous dinos were larger than sheep. This is important for analysis of the K-T extinction, where no purely terrestrial animal larger than a cat survived (crocs and champsosaurs were larger, but were by this time semi-aquatic ambush predators). What features of dinos or of late-Cretaceous ecosystems prevented the existence of cat-sized or smaller dinos? Dinos' large size apparently was their death warrant, so it's possibly a more important issue than e.g. warm-bloodedness. The only explanation I've seen (pieced to gether from Bakker's "Dinosaur Heresies" and Pauls' "Predatory Dinosaurs") is that dino anatomy (short, rigid spines; poor sideways mobility of the rear limbs) made them less well adapted than mammals for small terrestrial vertebrate niches, since all terrain is rough from the point of view of small animals; but it's not very convincing, since most birds are small and many flourish on uneven ground and in the undergrowth.Philcha 14:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There were plenty of dinosaurs smaller than a sheep in the Cretaceous period.  Mass is a far better qualifier than length, since tails made up such a large percentage of the body length.  Velociraptor, for example, would have massed around 15 kilos at most. - Dotdotdotdash 02:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the well-known small dinosaurs are Cretaceous, actually (Microraptor, several hypsilophodonts, true Echinodon, Caenagnathasia, etc.), and in the Campanian-Maastrichtian we have noasaurids, "Microcephale", and several alvarezsaurids (which were in the single-digit kilo range).  In Argentina, we have dinky Saltasaurus and Neuquensaurus, which weren't cases of insular dwarfism.  Supermassive sauropods appear to be clustered in the Late Jurassic and the timeframe around the Early Cretaceous-Late Cretaceous boundary.  Many North American lineages seem larger, but that may be a predator-prey arms race: tyrannosaurids got bigger, so prey got bigger, so tyrannosaurids got bigger...  Also, tyrannosaurid growth strategy seems to have eliminated the medium predator niche for other genera.  The biggest issue (no pun intended) is that there are taphonomic biases against preservation of terrestrial small animal remains (most small prehistoric mammal genera are largely based on teeth), and search biases against collecting and studying them unless they're obviously interesting, like being in nests. J. Spencer 21:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Why were the latest dinosaurs all so large?

message: The "warm-bloodedness section should be almost entirely removed, as there's a more complete page about the Warm-bloodedness of dinosaurs.
Philcha 00:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed the main article is more comprehensive. However, the section here on Dinosaur is only an overview of what the article says. Also, the section was one that helped get Dinosaur to FA status, & its dleetion may cause it to be removed & even stripped of its title as a FA. Thanks, Spawn Man 01:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While it would normally be a valid concern related to overall article size, keep in mind that this is a parent-article with many children. In this case it's actually reasonable and proper to give significant coverage to important sub-topics, along with links to the relevant Main Article. Dinosaur is indeed an FA, and any changes should be carefully considered in terms of how they will affect that. Article stability is a very desireable goal once this level is achieved :) Doc  Tropics Message in a bottle 01:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I must agree. This article is linked to from around 3,500 other articles; it's a high-profile area, and the article needs to be complete and cover all major topics, even if there's an article which covers the topic more in depth. Also, one of the reasons it was made a Featured Article is because many editors felt the content was consistent, complete, and well-balanced. Moving out entire sections just doesn't make a lot of sense at this point. Best, Firsfron of Ronchester 01:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many of the subheadings in this article also have larger, more in-depth articles attributed to them. So, at what point do you stop cutting out content because it can be found elsewhere on wikipedia? I think the section is entirely necessary and adds a great deal to the article. After all, when you ask for information about dinosaurs, surely you expect to get a comprehensive account of all aspects of the subject? (obviously without going into unecessary detail but still, there's a fine line between too much and not enough...) Greebo cat 02:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Warm-blooded?

message: I believe there is a large amount of evidence pointing to dinosaurs and man coexisting. I think this information should be included in the Wikipedia article:
- Trained scientists reported seeing a dinosaur.
- 1,000 people had seen a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang accrording to the Chinese publication, China Today (see: Lai Kuan and Jian Qun, ‘Dinosaurs: Alive and Well and Living in Northwest China?’, China Today, Vol. XLII No. 2, February 1993, p. 59.) 
- An expedition which included, Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology with the United States National Museum, examined an ancient pictograph that pointed to dinosaurs and man existing 
- The World Book Encyclopedia states that: "The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth. Dragons were generally evil and destructive. Every country had them in its mythology."  
- The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, a second century piece of art, appears to be a piece of artwork that shows a dinosaur and man coexisting. 
- On May 13, 1572 a dinosaur may have been killed by a peasant farmer in Italy (pg 41 "The Great Dinosaur Mystery" by Paul Taylor ) 
- It has been stated that dinosaurs are in the Bible.  
- There is other evidence that dinosaurs and man coexisted. 136.183.154.15 02:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, none of the sources you cite would be considered reliable for purposes of a science article. If you can find similar info from an actual scientific journal or scholarly publication, that would be considered a reliable source. Thanks for taking an interest in the article, but we really can't include unsubstantiated assertions in an encyclopedia. If you have other questions about reliable sources, you might review WP:CITE, WP:VER, and WP:SOURCE. These policies explain the issues involved in detail.  Doc  Tropics 02:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The World Book Encyclopedia was cited an it is a credible source.  I would also point out that that trained scientists have reported seeing a dinosaur.  Thirdly, the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina is a widely known and notable piece of artwork and I can assure you that the photo was not altered.  Here is another source which could be checked: "The Illustrated London News of February 9, 1856 (p. 166) reported that workmen digging a railway tunnel in France last century disturbed a huge winged creature at Culmont, in Haute Marne, while blasting rock for the tunnel. The creature was described as livid black, with a long neck and sharp teeth. It looked like a bat, and its skin was thick and oily. It died soon after. Its wingspan was measured at 3.22 metres (10 feet 7 inches). A naturalist ‘immediately recognised it as belonging to the genus Pterodactylus anas’, and it matched the remains of known pterodactyl fossils."  How would one get an old copy of the Illustrated London News? 136.183.154.15 03:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The World Book Encyclo. reference is in relation to Dragons, not Dinosaurs, and the specific source you cited for it was actually creationscience.com, not the World Book itself. In fact, reviewing your refs in detail, they are all from answersingenisis.com, creationscience.com, creationism.org, and similar Creationist websites. As I said before, none of these would be considered reliable references for this article. Doc  Tropics 03:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded. Firsfron of Ronchester 03:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The World Book Encylopedia says that dinosaurs are strangely like dinosaurs.  Second, we don't have to cite the creationist sources we can site the original sources like World Book, China Today, and the book by the biologist Roy P. Mackal (Roy P. Mackal, A Living Dinosaur? In Search of Mokele-Mbembe, E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, 1987). Lastly, I still haven't received a valid objection why the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina can't be used.  Are you saying this famous piece of artwork was altered by the creationist website? 136.183.154.15 03:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Doc Tropics, if we use the non-creationist sources like China Today, World Book Enycyclopedia, and a famous piece of art these should be considered reliable sources.  Could you please explain why the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina can't be used?  There are no controversies that this famous piece of art was forged.  136.183.154.18 04:14, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All of these seem to be more relevant to the Cryptozoology article than to the dinosaur one as it also involves prehistoric animals which are not necessary dinosaur such as the above mentioned pterodactyl (a pterosaur) and the Loch Ness monster (that most cryptozoologist described as a possible plesiosaur). At most, we could just add a sentence that there are claims that dinosaurs have survived the K-T extinction and link to the crytozoology article. ArthurWeasley 04:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's already a link to Religious perspectives on dinosaurs. Honestly, there's no reason to link to multiple rejected theories on dinosaurs; one is quite enough. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also found some other info which might prove useful: "Scientists in the former Soviet Union have reported a layer of rock containing more than 2,000 dinosaur footprints alongside tracks “resembling human footprints.”1 (Alexander Romashko, “Tracking Dinosaurs,” Moscow News, No. 24, 1983, p. 10). 136.183.154.18 04:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I saw that movie. It sucked (personal opinion only, no cite). Reign of Fire. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You beat me to the punchline, Killer Chihuahua. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm just glad I'm not the only one who thought this was a total crock! Doc  Tropics 17:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Personally, i think that whoever 'ken' is should be unblocked and allowed to go on with his crusade-i live for reading this kind of pap. He's making me laugh anyway-even if he is blocking up the talk page with unscientific, ridiculously sourced creationist rubbish. Yay for crazy people... Greebo cat 19:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, what his assertions lack in factual data, they make up for with their entertainment value. Doc  Tropics 19:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dinosaurs and man coexisted 

message: Isn't it a bit weird that meat-eating dinosars were descendants to birds, when they belonged to the order Saurischia? Perhaps they evolved a bird-hip when they evolved into birds? It's always disturbed me. Were dinosaurs like Archaeopteryx and Microraptor bird-hipped or lizard-hipped?! And how the fuck could anyone write that dinosaurs and humans coexisted?!  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.181.53.36 (talk) 15:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Ornithischia" and "Saurischia" are just names, don't lose sleep over them. And yes, Archaeopteryx and Microraptor and other dromaeosaur-type dinosaurs evolved a backwards-pointing pubis just like the "ornithischians". Actually if I recall correctly the situation in birds and closely-related theropods is a bit different than in your so-called "bird-hipped" dinosaurs - the little feathery guys actually turned their pubic bones backwards, while the big herbivores just made theirs short and grew a big backwards-pointing projection on them. Kotengu 17:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, a better name for Ornithischia would be Pseudoornithischia, "false bird hips". Don't get me started on on Theropoda vs. Ornithopoda...Dinoguy2 21:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hip-problem 

message: We seem to have lost "Image:Eoraptor.jpg" in the "Evolution of dinosaurs" section; does anyone know what happened? Should this link be removed/replaced? If the image was deleted for some reason, a replacement would be useful, but finding and licensing images is not one of my strong points. Perhaps someone could help with this?  : ) Doc  Tropics 17:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The image was presumably deleted because it didn't contain enough information about where it came from. I replaced the image a few days ago with a new one, a result of the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Dinosaurs/Image_review page, where new dinosaur images are requested and reviewed. Feel free to make requests. Best, Firsfron of Ronchester 19:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Image?

message: Every time I read something that has to do with Early Dinosaurs, people talk about Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus and even Coelophysis, but I've never heard anyone talk about Staurikosaurus. WHY?!. It lived far earlier than any of those other creatures, and I've only ever heard it stated as the earliest dinosaur in websites that deal specifically with it, not in websites that talk about the earliest dinosaurs. In-fact, where most sources state that Dinosaurs evolved in the Late Triassic, it is stated with staurikosaurus that it was a Middle Triassic dinosaur!. So why is there never any mention of it, yet there is mention of the others?!. And for the record, there have been recent discoveries about even earlier dinosaurs (prosauropods from Madagascar). And, though there is no discovered evidence for it and I am not a proffessional, I suspect that Dinosaurs actually evolved sometime in the Early Triassic. - 12:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure Staurikosaurus lived "way earlier" than Hererrasaurus, but you have a point. There is evidence for Anisian dinosaurs, and some folks think dinosaur origins go back even further. Still, our current article does state early dinosaurs have been found in the Middle Triassic. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:16, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um... that article is incorrect. It lists Staurikosaurus as Middle Triassic (Carnian). It is Carnian, but Carnian is the Late Triasssic, same time period as Eo and Herrera. There's a new, possibly earlier dinosaur just announced, but it won't be published 'till next year. Dinoguy2 22:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup. Actually, there are several possible earlier dinosaurs: an "undescribed coelophysoid from the Ladinian" and an "undescribed herrerasaurid from the Anisian" Not sure whatever happened to the undescribed saurpodomorph from Madagascar, though, that they indicated was earlier than anything else... Firsfron of Ronchester 22:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That material turned out to be nondinosaurian, I believe.  Dotdotdotdash 02:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earliest Dinosaur 

message: If nobody objects or offers alternative suggestions within a week, I'll edit the "dinosaur" page to:
*Retitle "Dinosaur synapomorphies" to "Distinguishing characteristics" - "synapomorphies" is too technical for the general public and so is the article on "synapomorphy" - but I'll link to the "synapomorphy" article.
*Remove the totally incorrect inclusion of 3-toed foot under "synapomorphies" / "Distinguishing characteristics" - see my discussion in Oct 2006 with MWAK.
*Under "Synapomorphies" / "Distinguishing characteristics", point out that Saturnalia casts doubt on whether perforated acetabulum is a synapomorphy  - see my discussion in Oct 2006 with MWAK.
*Under "Other shared anatomical features" correct the mistaken assertion that upright limbs are more efficient. They're not (Bakker reports his test of this in The Dinosaur Heresies), their advantage is that they avoid Carrier's Constraint and thus provide greater stamina.Philcha 23:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't "dumb down" articles for the sake of the general public. Articles which contain difficult terms are to use wikilinks. This isn't the Simple English Wikipedia. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not proposing to "dumb down" anything - if you've seen some of my edits (e.g. Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, Extinction event,  Warm-bloodedness of dinosaurs) you'll notice that I aim to make readers think. But Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and I've always thought that an encyclopedia's main job is to give non-specialists an introduction to a subject and encourage them to read further. I have no problem with the use of "synapomorphy" in a technical discussion, and I think the introduction and short explanation of "synapomorphy" in the first paragraph of the section is excellent. But using it in a section heading is going to deter some readers, who might otherwise have read further and become interested enough to read about classification techniques.Philcha 14:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree that synapomorphy is a highly technical term, and absolutely nobody who doesn't specialize in the field of evolutionary biology is going to know what it means. It should be changed in the headers, and linked and followed by a short definition when first used in the text. Dinoguy2 19:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corrections needed 

message: This currently duplicates too much of the K-T extinction article, gives too much space to the Alvarez impact theory and omits the other really strong contender, the Deccan Traps flood basalt event.
I suggest this section should:
*Point out that a good theory has to: (A) account for what became extinct and what survived (with very brief lists); (B) match the fossil record of the timing of extinctions.
*Point out that a combination of causes might be needed to account for the fossil evidence.
*Make the account of the Alvarez impact theory shorter and link to the relevant section of the K-T extinction article.
*Add the Deccan Traps flood basalt event and link to the relevant section of the K-T extinction article.Philcha 00:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As to your first two suggestions--it's not our place to point things out. These are rational points and probably appear somewhere in the literature. If so, we need to quote sources that point these things out and avoid drawing our own conclusions. Dinoguy2 03:31, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section "Extinction theories" 

message: This section is too long and duplicates too much of the article "Warm-bloodedness of dinosaurs".
It also states, mistakenly AFAIK, that 19th century scientists regard dinos as cold-blooded. I'm not sure what Owen's view was, but T.H. Huxley was impressed by their similarities to birds (implies active and therefore "warm-blooded"), and Charles R. Wilson's famous painting "Fighting Laelaps" (now called Dryptosaurus) shows 2 dinos leaping at each other like fighting cocks.Philcha 00:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be correct here, though I'm not sure whether these scientists considered dinosaurs warm blooded or not (or whether they explicitley considered them cold blooded). Someone more familiar with the early literature would be able to clarify this section. Dinoguy2 03:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your agnosticism ("I'm not sure whether these scientists considered dinosaurs warm blooded or not"). The best-known evidence for 19th century opinion is: Owen's lizard-like reconstructions at Crystal Palace; Huxley's comparison of dinos to birds and and Wilson's "Fighting Laelaps". I suggest the article should say that there is little clear evidence of the views of 19th century scientists and refer to Owen, Huxley and Wilson.Philcha 13:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Does anyone know how and when the "cold-blooded" view became dominant?Philcha 13:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Owen thought they had a high metabolism; the typical "sluggish" view only became dogma in the thirties of the 20th century. This wasn't caused by some deceptive empirical knowledge gained but merely a result of lessened interest, so that their peculiarities no longer stood out from general "reptility"--MWAK 18:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

text: "The section also misses the real issue: were dinos sluggish or active" Scientists like Bakker have a clear opinion on this. I seriously doubt it's possible to know something like that. Even among warm-blooded animals, plenty are very sluggish. And among cold-blooded animals, many are highly active. Impossible to kno without directly observing the behavior of each species. Dinoguy2 20:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Even among warm-blooded animals, plenty are very sluggish. And among cold-blooded animals, many are highly active." I accept that: crocs and some other reptiles can display great speed and agility, but only in very short bursts; some mammals avoid exertion where possible (notably domestic cats); some sauropods apparently used their long necks to graze / browse over a wide area while their bodies stood still. But AFAIK all warm-blooded terrestrial vertebrates are capable of keeping on the move for hours at a time, and I know of no cold-blooded terrestrial vertebrates which are capable of such long periods of activity.Philcha 14:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Warm-bloodedness 

message: I edited this section because it was kind of ugly previously; it was reworded, and I don't really have a problem with it. However, I do question the use of written scriptures rather than mythology; while Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists are the most common and prominent religious folk who oppose it, they aren't the only ones, and mythology is more inclusive as not all religious folk who oppose the standard interpretation of dinosaur fossils have written scriptures, necessarily. I don't really have any sources on hand to dispute it though, so if anyone does one way or the other, it'd be nice; I'm not sure if its important or not. Thoughts/comments/opinions/sources? Titanium Dragon 10:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please append the heading that the content of this section, as stated currently, is not neutral. A blanket statement implying that all religious references and stances on dinosaur history fails against the scientific method needs further explanation or needs to be removed.  It is better simply to refer to the link regarding the Religious Perspective of Dinosaurs without comment than to include that line.  Sawubona 10:44, 2/5/2008 (EST). 192.91.147.34 15:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that the second sentence contains the phrase "these religiously-inspired interpretations". "These" refers back to "Various religious groups have views about dinosaurs that differ from those held by most scientists" in the first sentence. There's no reference to "all" religiously-inspired interpretations of dinosaurs--though it would seem a remarkable coincidence for any religiously-inspired interpretation to "withstand serious scientific scrutiny." KarlBunker 17:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion & Dinosaurs 

message: The Religious Perspectives on Dinosaurs sub-article linked to by this article is currently up for deletion, with lots of support for that position.
Just thought I would mention that here. I personally support keeping the sub-article, since religious views on dinosaurs are significant minority positions that should be given coverage on Wikipedia... even if we don't personally agree with them. Various religious groups do have specific views about dinosaurs in particular, whereas this is not the case for, say, ancient organisms such as trilobites that haven't captured the popular imagination. These views shouldn't be completely "disappeared" on Wikipedia IMO, even though they're specious, anti-intellectual, &c.
This issue has been discussed nearly to death here over the past couple of years, so I won't belabor the pros and cons again. Suffice it to say that placing information about religious perspectives on dinosaurs in a sub-article has seemed to work pretty well since we implemented the change back in January '06. Killdevil 06:09, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put it up for deletion because the article says very little, is not very active, has issues, and what it does say is simply duplication of what is in other articles. It should be at best a footnote to this article, but a link to, say, creationists in the relevent section on this article seems like it'd be a way to move them elsewhere. Given that "religious perspectives" is really "creationist perspectives" anyway, and fundamentalist Christian ones at that, it seems much better to simply link to the relevent articles (creation-evolution controversy and creationism) and have it be nothing but a couple of sentences here. If there's an increase in vandalism, I'll help fix it, but honestly, vandalism isn't a good reason to change a page. Titanium Dragon 06:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have a horse in this race, so long as the content of that article doesn't find its way back into this one where it started off. The creation of the Religion article was a comprimise after pages and pages of debate over whether or not the religious content of this article should be removed. While I normally don't like the idea of creating articles simply for the sake of deflecting unwanted content, know that the deletion of that article could lead to a repeat of the edit wars that took place on Dinosaur. Dinoguy2 15:11, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religious Perspectives Sub-article Deletion 

message: According to this, Dinosaur is one of the most popular pages on Wikipedia, receiving over 4,000 visitors a day, which works out to over 1.5 million views per year. As near as I can tell, the only animal-related articles which rank higher are Cat, Animal, List of dog breeds, and Snake. Firsfron of Ronchester 10:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's pretty cool! Though Animal should probably be beefed up a bit... Dinoguy2 15:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, animal is a pretty terse article. Killdevil 19:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Popular page

message: ::New link - under Popular
*Dinodirectory
Hi; we've got a link, www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/dinosaurs-other-extinct-creatures/index.html, which can get you there.
:Done. Hut 8.5 21:40, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New Link

message: I have recently checked on the article, only to find that most of the good pictures have been replaced with a multitude of pictures, some of which aren't as good. Currently, there are too many pictures on the article. Some of the T. rex pictures have been removed, & let's face it, he's one of the most popular therefore should get at least 1 more picture than he currently has. None of the "periods" or full stops were in place on the image captions & for a FA quality article, this should have picked up on. I agree with people above, I'd prefer a few less artist's depictions & a couple more photos. But overall, the number needs to be decreased as it isn't looking very FA class right now. Articles aren't picture galleries, but encyclopedic pages. Thoguhts on what to do as I'd hate to see this article reviewed... Spawn Man 22:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know anything about pictures, as I have no sense of aesthetics, but refs are in short supply throughout. J. Spencer 23:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At the time I got it to FA status, all sections had references, so I have no idea what's gone on in the regard since then... Spawn Man 00:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be worthwhile comparing the current article to the one which got FA status, however I don't know how to directly compare two articles more than 500 edits apart, other than to quickly revert to one. Cas Liber 05:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's the difference between the current version and the version on the day it was featured:  Mgiganteus1 06:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that - I get a headache just looking at it...Cas Liber 07:35, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Pictures: 

message: 1. The "evolution" section could be expanded. It is not very informative now. It is good to know what types of dinosaurs evolved and became dominant during each period (and perhaps - some existing speculations as to why they evolved and became dominant; e.g., why were the carnivores so predominantly bipedal, and the herbivores quadrupedal, why did the sauropods evolve such long necks, and why did they decline somewhat and yield to different groups, why did so many attend such enormous size, etc.), how did the total "pool" of dinosaur species change over time? Also, while cladistics is all very nice, the good old "tree" pictures of evolution are intuitively easier to grasp. I had better not try to do something like that myself, because my most recent dinosaur book is from the early nineties and I am likely to get it wrong (not to mention that it reqires some work :))
2. A section about dinosaur intelligence might be useful. I believe it has been the subject of controversy, somewhat like (and in connection with) warm-bloodedness, and all those disturbing facts about astoundingly small brains deserve mention. 
Both of these issues are touched upon here and there in articles about particular species and groups, but you don't get a global picture there. --91.148.159.4 19:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the suggestions! We'll have a look at adjusting those sections. J. Spencer 16:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two suggestions 

message: Only one dinosaur species has been identified as having a four chambered heart, and the idea is scientifically dubious, i know of at least 2 papers the openly criticise the findings of the paper. shall i add this, and references for both papers, or simply remove the comments? Mikey - "so emo, it hurts"© 15:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The specific case was dubious, but the idea that dinosaurs had four-chambered hearts isn't (both birds and crocs have them; crocs are a bit modified to help them stay underwater longer). Nevertheless, that line should have citations, as it currently lacks them. I think it should stay, because it's a recent part of this discussion. If you'd like to do something with that section, it'd be a good idea to add ref 32 from the link above, as it discusses birds and crocs both having four-chambered hearts. J. Spencer 16:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: as far as i am aware a crocodile has a functionally four chambred heart that is facultatively three-chambered (during diving for example). The hearts of birds and dinosaurs although similar are defiantly differ in anatomical detail. Mikey - "so emo, it hurts"© 16:25, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heart and Sleeping Posture