Support NeoGAF

[Professor Renegade]

Other than the generic choices that I grew up with (e.g. T-Rex, Deinonychus, Velociraptor, Megalodon), I'm going with the Therizinosaurus.

 

[Dead Man]

Forgot about this thread, sorry Mumei

Anyway, everyone has some great choices, and I have learned of a lot of new coolness.

Archelon is a favourite of mine

Diprotodon is awesome, a giant wombat basically:

I also love a couple thankfully extinct reptiles, Quinkana and Varanus priscus
.

Varanus priscus (formerly Megalania prisca) was a giant, carnivorous goanna that might have grown to as long as 7 metres (23 feet), and weighed up to 1,940 kilograms (Molnar, 2004).

The megalania (Megalania prisca or Varanus priscus), sometimes called the giant ripper lizard, was a very large goanna or monitor lizard, now extinct. It was part of a megafaunal assemblage that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene. It seems to have disappeared around 40,000 years ago. The first aboriginal settlers of Australia may have encountered living megalanias.

Quinkana sp., was a terrestrial crocodile which grew from five to possibly 7 metres in length. It had long legs positioned underneath its body, and chased down mammals, birds and other reptiles for food. Its teeth were blade-like for cutting rather than pointed for gripping as with water dwelling crocodiles.

How about some prehistoric whales and whale ancestors?

Like Ambulocetus ("walking whale"), possibly some sort of terrifying mammalian crocodile like thing:

Or Aegyptocetus, first discovered as a bunch of cross sections of a skull in some quarried limestone:

Or perhaps Basilosaurus, which roughly means "King Lizard," winner of perhaps the least fitting scientific name for any animal ever:

Awesome, I love transitional forms between land and sea.

 

[Mumei]

Yes, the Ruben et al. of BAND fame are the same as those suggesting that dinosaurs were metabolic "good reptiles," both hypotheses that are very much in the scientific minority. Their methods and conclusions are questionable, to put it mildly, and contradicted by numerous morphological, phylogenetic, and biomechanical analyses.

Mmhmm.

So far it seems like the endothermic chapter was most convincing, especially since some of the intermediate chapter's arguments seemed dependent upon a lot of older studies (e.g. 1960s and 1970s) and made rather liberal reference to Ruben et al.

I am also amused that now I'm starting to recognize cross-references two books in. Well, three if you count that 40-something page children's book I found at the library by Thomas Holtz.

Other than the generic choices that I grew up with (e.g. T-Rex, Deinonychus, Velociraptor, Megalodon), I'm going with the Therizinosaurus.

That is Therizinosaurus as I imagined it as a child! .... Well, maybe not the head and neck.

Forgot about this thread, sorry Mumei

Anyway, everyone has some great choices, and I have learned of a lot of new coolness.

Archelon is a favourite of mine

Diprotodon is awesome, a giant wombat basically:

I also love a couple thankfully extinct reptiles, Quinkana and Varanus priscus
.

Awesome, I love transitional forms between land and sea.

Transitional forms are awesome. And Kabbles actually mentioned Diprotodon to me on IRC the same day I made this topic.

 

[Cow Mengde]

Ah yes, the BANDs. That paper you're talking about tries to poke holes in things we haven't fully understood yet, or used really biased research in their argument. Just a whole bunch of facts being ignored. Darren Naish at TetZoo called out that paper years ago.

BTW, I just came back from San Francisco and was at UC Berkley. I took a picture in front of a cast of Wankle Rex (the other 90% complete Tyrannosaurus fossil MOR 555).

I don't know if it's the pose or what, but this T.rex is really tall, even compared to the one in the AMNH. I paid special attention to the hips rather than the head due to the pose being different for the 2. I recall the stand on AMNH being taller too while MOR 555 has a smaller stand here.

I'm not the best person to use for size comparison though since I'm around 5'4"

Image removed because it's showing up in google for image searches of MOR 555.

Skull of MOR 555

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

BTW, I just came back from San Francisco and was at UC Berkley. I took a picture in front of a cast of Wankle Rex (the other 90% complete Tyrannosaurus fossil MOR 555).

I don't know if it's the pose or what, but this T.rex is really tall, even compared to the one in the AMNH. I paid special attention to the hips rather than the head due to the pose being different for the 2. I recall the stand on AMNH being taller too while MOR 555 has a smaller stand here.

I'm not the best person to use for size comparison though since I'm around 5'4"

It's been years since I last visited the UCMP, but yeah, the posture of their mount makes it look taller than some other T. rex displays, particularly the AMNH's, which is crouched in a low stalking pose.

Fun Fact: if you look closely at the UCMP mount, you can see that the dorsal and caudal vertebrae are actually duplicated in pairs, presumably to save on costs. Alas, such is the state of public education these days...

Skull of MOR 555

That's actually a cast of good ol' AMNH 5027.

On the other side of the Bay, there's a nice cast of RTMP 81.6.1, "Black Beauty," at the California Academy of Sciences; not a specimen I'm used to seeing, what with casts of 5027 and "Stan" seemingly everywhere.

 

[Cow Mengde]

That's actually a cast of good ol' AMNH 5027.

Goddammit, I thought that looked familiar!!! I noticed the crushed side when I was looking at it too.

On the other side of the Bay, there's a nice cast of RTMP 81.6.1, "Black Beauty," at the California Academy of Sciences; not a specimen I'm used to seeing, what with casts of 5027 and "Stan" seemingly everywhere.

I was gonna go, but something came up so I couldn't.