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How do we know what dinosaurs looked like?
Paleontologists pull inspiration from modern birds and reptiles to design true-to-life T. rexes.
Sara Chodosh
April 11, 2020
https://www.popsci.com/story/science/dinosaur-drawings-accuracte/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
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Youve seen enough museum models, illustrations, and CGI predators that youd likely recognize a Tyrannosaurus rex if you saw one. But how can you be sure? Nobody has ever clapped eyes on one in real life, and even the best skeletons are often only 90 percent complete. Specialists called paleoartists do base their re-creations on hard evidence (bones, feathers, and bits of skin) but, just as often, well-informed guesses. We may never know exactly how T. rex and other prehistoric creatures like the Microraptor gui looked, but heres how we landed on the current incarnations of these deceased beasts.
Stance
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Muscle and fat
Like reptiles, dinosaurs probably didnt have much body fat, so they looked pretty swole. To determine just how stocky or svelte to render a species, paleontologists most often refer to the same muscle groups in birds. But sometimes theres an evolutionary reason to make an area extra burly: A T. rex, for example, had to kill prey and bite through bone with only its jaw strengthhence its thick-neckedness.
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Limbs
Bones structures can indicate how appendages moved. T. rex, for one, used to be shown with its hands facing down, like it was playing a piano, but a 2018 analysis of turkey and alligator shoulders determined their palms may have turned in. Similarly, the angle between M. guis shoulder blades and rib cage may have prevented its wings from lifting high enough to flap; wind-tunnel tests suggest these dinos glided.
Skin
Soft tissue generally doesnt last underground, but sometimes we get lucky. For the T. rex, a small slice of fossilized skin found in Montana enabled artists to make a stamp of the texture and apply it to the rest of the body. Coloring is trickier: Designers take cues from the environment more than the fossil record. T. rex lived in semi-marshy areas and flood plains, so it likely had brownish-greenish dappled skin to blend in.
Feathers
Tiny cellular structures called melanosomes vary in color depending on their shape: Black ones are sausage-like; reds are round. Thanks to a very well-preserved M. gui feather, we know it shone raven. Nanostructures also suggest it had an iridescent sheen, like a crow or magpie. Weve never dug up a plumed T. rex, but its close relatives often have protofeathers on their heads, backs, and tails, so we suspect the king did, too.
The Magistrate
(95,258 posts)They have become even more fascinating in every way.
sl8
(13,949 posts)For starters, a lot of them died off. It was in all the papers.
The Magistrate
(95,258 posts)But a child reading on the subject then learned much that has been completely overthrown in the last several decades. This is not nostalgia for what it was, the new understandings are certainly superior, and quite fascinating.
marble falls
(57,397 posts)The Magistrate
(95,258 posts)"The object in opening the mind, as in opening the mouth, is to close it again on something solid."
marble falls
(57,397 posts)"Does anyone really know what time it is?", remembering the same hand that grasps, releases.
The Magistrate
(95,258 posts)A plague upon the airwaves, that took years to abate. he were competent, I will give you that, but I am going to have to call up something to chase away the earworm you have summoned....
marble falls
(57,397 posts)The Magistrate
(95,258 posts)That I summon up Bobby Goldsboro, or drivel concerning yellow ribbons or cakes that melt in the rain, or things named after strong drink that turn out not be a barmaid but somebody's dog, or even worse things it is taboo to even name, but which I am well aware of, and heard when new. Because if pressed I will do it....
I think we should just bow, concede the field to one another, and find some decent pictures of modern dinosaurs.
marble falls
(57,397 posts)The Magistrate
(95,258 posts)I have just finished a pot of chili and must serve it to the womenfolk, and will be absent a good while in consquence.
Be well, and stay safe!
marble falls
(57,397 posts)Dem2theMax
(9,656 posts)But to have him play the worst earworm of all time on the accordion?
I don't think I ever told you where I live. I'll have to send you a DM at some point. You are going to laugh.
marble falls
(57,397 posts)Dem2theMax
(9,656 posts)Aristus
(66,481 posts)When I was a kid, books on dinosaurs, TV programs about them, and even comic books (Turok, Son of Stone!) showed the T. Rex as a fully-upright, lurching, lumbering klutz, whom one could easily outrun (Turok and Andar did it all the time.)
In the years just before the film Jurassic Park was released, the perception of the T. Rex changed. Paleontologist figured out that Rex's bodily orientation must have been horizontal, rather than vertical, with his enormous tail providing balance.
This changed the T. Rex from a laughable paper menace into a swift, merciless, frightening, and indomitable predator.
marble falls
(57,397 posts)localroger
(3,634 posts)There was a lot of resistance to this, as there was to the introduction of plate tectonics and the K-T impactor theory. There were a lot of small cues which piled up indicating that dinos were birds rather than reptiles, until the evidence was overwhelming. Michael Crichton's original novel Jurassic Park was directly inspired by this ongoing shift in our thought about dinosaurs.
Harker
(14,064 posts)The boy Tim in the film "Jurassic Park" cites him, but mispronounces his name.
localroger
(3,634 posts)I love the anecdote about Bakker and Horner and the homage in Jurassic Park. "I told you T. Rex was a hunter!"
Harker
(14,064 posts)He used to frequent the second hand bookshops where I worked in Boulder. If we had copies of "Dinosaur Heresies" on the shelf, he'd sign them and decorate them with fun dinosaur sketches.
He was interesting and fun to talk with on any subject... from his ongoing inquiries as to whether I'd yet found the "big red book on anteaters" he was searching for to "what kind of aircraft are those in "Lawrence of Arabia"?
It was a sad day for me when he moved to curate in Houston.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,922 posts)which are probably all wrong now.
The Magistrate
(95,258 posts)Did you have the Roy Chapman Andrews 'All About Dinosaurs'? There was another about Baluchatherium, not a dinosaur but still --- Landmark, I think the series was, but it seems past accurate recall without a Google....
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,922 posts)I was fascinated with them. At one time the little plastic ones were cereal box prizes - I'm sure I had this one:
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,922 posts)Used to have to chase the damn things off my lawn almost every damn day.
marble falls
(57,397 posts)"Rex Motels" - they check in but they don't check out.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,498 posts)Next, they have their kids draw them as they describe the creatures during a stoner haze. Drawings are submitted for peer review, then published.
Same with rocket scientists, I hear.
Simple............
Seriously, the art of envisioning those creatures takes a lot of skill and research. Kudos to those that do the art for us.
marble falls
(57,397 posts)3catwoman3
(24,079 posts)...a time machine so he could go back and see what color dinosaur skins really were. It bothered him enormously that there was no way to know for sure.
22 years later, he still does not like unanswerable questions.
jpak
(41,760 posts)marble falls
(57,397 posts)csziggy
(34,139 posts)We took along our great nephew's stuffed dinosaur and took pictures with the modeled T-rexes:
Turkey sized baby:
Four year old juvenile:
Adult T-rex:
Dem2theMax
(9,656 posts)great aunt and uncle ever!
Taking your great-nephews little dinosaur to take pictures with the real dinosaurs. That is so cool. He must have loved it!
csziggy
(34,139 posts)I'm trying to go through the pictures that include him so we can make a book of Dino's travels for the great-nephew. Dino also gathered friends - a puffin, Nessie, and a Welsh dragon - as well as people all over who watched us taking pictures of Dino and heard his story.
Along the trip, my husband texted pics of Dino back to the kids and they were thrilled.
Dem2theMax
(9,656 posts)I'm sitting here, smiling from ear-to-ear just picturing the two of you taking Dino all over the world.
Yes, the two of you deserve some sort of award.
Best great-aunt and Uncle ever!
Xolodno
(6,408 posts)Zoo Keeper: Are you ready to see the descendant of the vicious and terrifying raptor?
Audience; "YES!!!"
I chuckle a bit because I can see this is a set up.
Out comes a chicken.