Here's that other strange-looking Triceratops I promised way back in the beginning.
The whole final section of the book may actually be the most brain-hurting. It purpotes to be a "Question and Answer" section that intends to show some genuine non-speculative science in this otherwise very silly book. Well...
First off, that's a metaphysical question I never thought I'd see. Secondly, "Mammals are only here because there are no dinosaurs. In the Age of Dinosaurs mammals were small... new meat-eating animals evolved -- first into giant flightless birds, and then carnivorous mammals."
So much wrong in one little rectangle of text, it boggles the mind. And here is another unsuspecting human who looks like he was blissfully unaware of what they were going to use his photo for.
But then the answer is "Yes" isn't it? Anyway, at least Dixon is nice enough to elaborate on this. Kinda:
Yeah.
That's downright philosophical. And what do people have against chickens anyway?
"I've always wanted to ride a Chocobo!"
Yeah, so who else has ever heard of this "Vivaporous Pachycephalosaurs" theory? I've only ever heard of live-birthing sauropods and that was long enough ago to feel like a childhood fever dream. Elsewhere, Dixon notes that since their eggs are always in pairs, a female Troodon must have had a pair of "egg tubes" in her body where modern birds only have one, which, if true, is news to me.
And then, there's this:
I feel Dixon stopped just short of screaming, "'Jurassic Park 3' is stupid, stop even acknowledging it!" This is part of a brief listing of science fiction involving dinosaurs in modern times that mentions "Jurassic Park", of course, and The Lost World and Journey to the Center of the Earth and Pellucidar... but NOT The New Dinosaurs. Huh.
Anyway, it's time to touch base with an old friend:
Syntarsus sans Mohawk! Man, he looks strange without it.
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Sketch of the Day!
5 comments:
Oviraptorosaurs at least having two egg tubes appears to be true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oviraptorosauria#Reproduction
'In that it is true that all meat-eating dinosaurs are related to modern birds, then it is true.'
Ah, what a sentence.
"Yeah."
I assume you were reacting to this sentence: "In fact birds look nothing like what we would imagine a dinosaur to." That was my reaction anyway.
"Yeah, so who else has ever heard of this "Vivaporous Pachycephalosaurs" theory?"
Dixon & Norman have mentioned it in at least some of their older books (E.g. "The illustrated encyclopedia of dinosaurs"), but they didn't say who suggested it.
"Elsewhere, Dixon notes that since their eggs are always in pairs, a female Troodon must have had a pair of "egg tubes" in her body where modern birds only have one, which, if true, is news to me."
Dixon's probably referring to the dual oviducts ("The presence of two developed eggs suggests that Sinosauropteryx had dual oviducts and laid eggs in pairs, like other theropods.[2]": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinosauropteryx#Reproduction ).
"Sketch of the Day!"
Is that Yutyrannus being slapped?
BTW, I'm surprised you didn't mention the part about venomous dinos.
-JD-man
^^ JD (and others), this is as good a time to mention that there was SOOOOO much crazy in this book, my brain blanked out a bunch of weird stuff in self-defense. Of course, this also means that there's STILL enough material for a third and maybe even a fourth person to review it...
Man, I had no idea that we evolved from large, flightless birds! This changes everything!
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