#sillysaur

[quark-nova]

Like. What's wild is that there's consensus among scientists about what is or isn't a dinosaur. Except sillysaurs but they're cute so we give them a pass.

It's just that some people are misinformed and, instead of learning about dinosaurs and how cool (and fluffy!) they truly are, decide to stay stuck on what they learned as kids. And misinformation turns into willful ignorance.

Have a sillysaur.

Asilisaurus kongwe, by Gabriel Ugueto

I can make post after post after post explaining WHAT dinosaurs are and HOW birds are living dinosaurs as CLEARLY as I can and point to FREE RESOURCES for people to learn more and yet I *STILL* get ignorant CRAP like this filling my notes EVERY DAMN DAY

dinosaur means a descendant of the most recent common ancestor of Megalosaurus and Iguanodon. "terrible REPTILE" is what we named them because HUMANS NAME THINGS.

birds descended from that ancestor. thus, they are dinosaurs.

neither dinosaurs NOR birds are lizards. lizards are their OWN DAMN HYPERADAPTED THING that are super weird and nothing like birds or dinosaurs.

i am a PALEONTOLOGIST and it SAYS SO IN MY BIO so CLEARLY I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT

you can also GOOGLE THIS. AND GOOGLE WILL TELL YOU THE SAME THING.

like, let's put it this way:

I have known, my entire life, a particular truth about the world. The majority of evidence has continued to support that truth, throughout my 30 years of life.

And yet, every five seconds, I get a million people telling me, with their whole chests, that I am wrong, even though, I am not.

What I'm saying is I'm constantly being gaslit by pretty much all of humanity apart from my comrades in arms and that has, in fact, contributed to my mental health issues.

This is not okay. Willful ignorance is not okay. We all need to be more okay with admitting we don't know things and looking them up. I don't know *lots* of things. And that's okay! I look them up! I learn!

Be okay with being wrong! Be okay with learning!

Stop gaslighting scientists! We're really tired and really scared bc the planet is on fire and no one is listening! Thanks!

[blorbologist]

You said we could ask about dinosaurs, what's your favourite/weirdest one? Also, do you think dino feathers are related to pterosaur fur? I'd love to imagine their common ancestor as a fluffy sillysaur-like creature :p

My favorite dinosaur flipflops between Dakotaraptor (potentially not valid & has the mess around its discovery, BUT was in a super cool ecosystem and is a real life JP Raptor) and Deinonychus (incredible fossils, revolutionized how we understand dinosaurs, the inspiration for those JP Raptors even if they slapped Velociraptor's name on the package). Because as fascinating as other species get, I'm a sucker for 'eagle-leopard-dragon'.

There's something just so cool about larger dromaeosaurids, even as it seems increasingly like most were not as social as we initially thought. I study social behavior in reptiles and can tell you that them not necessarily hunting in packs does not mean they didn't have fascinating intraspecific behaviors, and potentially social learning / gaze following / 'friendships' (here citing research in bearded dragons, red-footed tortoises and garter snakes, all of which are considered less socially / cognitively complex than birds. So I'd expect this as a bare minimum from most dromaeosaurids.)

My favorite weird dinosaur is actually harder to choose because there are so many of them. My current favorite is likely Jakapil, because I'm bitter it didn't win Dinosaur March Madness. You can read a bit more about it in @a-dinosaur-a-day's finalist post for it here! This thing has a super long ghost lineage, lived alongside one of the largest terrestrial predators to ever live, and just has such a funky look to it:

(Art credit to pantydraco on Twitter, which I 100% just chose because of the handle gkntrnh incredible)

Other weird favorites include Yi qui (dinosaur gave being a tiny dragon a try), Kulindadromeus (we'll get to it shortly) and Deinocheirus (giant-sloth-bear-duck, and its fossils also have their own incredibly weird story).

(I can't find who GIFed this and for that I am devastated, but it's from Prehistoric Planet's first season.)

To answer your second question, we don't actually call what pterosaurs have 'fur', given the implication that it'd be related to mammalian integument - the fuzz is called pycnofibers! Given that we see similar simple fibers in pterosaurs, theropods (see: the host of feathered dinosaur fossils, modern birds, a potential fuzzy pants trackway dated to the Triassic) and the ornithischians as well, I'd lean towards pycnofibers being basal to the group.

That weirdo I mentioned above, Kulindadromeus, is actually pretty instrumental to this - not only are its fossils absolutely insane (there are potentially hundreds of them in the bonebed! Including juveniles! Preserved with several types of scales!) but it was fuzzy! With three different types of fibers, too!

(Artist credit: Andrey Atuchin)

So the Triassic was likely rife with smallish not-quite-dinosaurs-not-quite-pterosaurs running around with floof, potentially to better deal with the harsh conditions. Or maybe just to look cute (this is half a joke gntrkntrknh)

[sordid-dog]

more sillysaurs @softenedsunbeams

doing some DINOVEMBER this year, more like old times! here's up to day 5!

[quark-nova]

Sillysaurs!

A small reptile doing something silly. Agreed?

[sordid-dog]

oh guess what. more sillysaurs @softenedsunbeams

more dinovembers! day 6-10!

[sordid-dog]

oh the sillysaurs @softenedsunbeams

iiiiit's day 15! which means here's the next batch of dinovembers!

[quark-nova]

No guarantee disclaimer: This product may or may not include sillysaurs. Use it at your own risk.

Birds are Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs are defined as "The Most Recent Common Ancestor of Megalosaurus (the first dinosaur named) and Iguanodon (the second dinosaur named) and ALL of that ancestors descendants"

This includes birds, because they evolved from dinosaurs

It does not include lizards, snakes, tuatara, crocodilians, turtles, cockroaches, Dimetrodon, pterosaurs/pterodactyls, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, sharks, frogs, salamanders, or a single mammal.

It does include every single bird.

The end.