If you think that you have no chance to see a living dinosaur on Earth, be prepared for the fact that this is not so. Get to know some of the myths about these creatures.
All dinosaurs became extinct
There was definitely a massive extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Their death is associated with a large asteroid that fell on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and this catastrophic event really became the end of existence for most species, but not for all.
“The origin of modern birds is associated with dinosaurs, ” says paleontologist Steve Brusatte. “Bats are a very strange species of mammals that have the ability to fly, and birds are a species of dinosaurs with the same characteristic.”
Dinosaurs were squamous lizards
“Over the past two decades, paleontologists in China have discovered a large number of dinosaurs, whose body was covered with feathers, ” says Brusatte. Feathers provided dinosaurs with regulation of body temperature.
Morning is wiser than the evening: scientists told how to treat sleepDue to coronavirus outbreak, Xiaomi launches smart mask with air control
A touching letter written 16 years ago was found by a girl on the ocean
In 2004, a primitive tyrannosaurus was found, covered with feathers similar to those that covered small predator dinosaurs. This discovery was followed by another discovery - in 2012, the utirannus was excavated. This huge lizard was closely related to the tyrannosaurus rex, which was also covered with feathers. These facts suggest that scientists should look differently at dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs were cold-blooded
Looking at the microscopic structure of dinosaur bones, scientists claim that they grew rapidly. They were characterized by rapid metabolism and regulation of body temperature.
“Most likely, the metabolism of dinosaurs was not like the metabolism of birds and mammals, ” says Brusatte.
The dinosaurs were gray-green
In fact, the dinosaurs were bright. It is striking that paleontologists can guess how they were stained because they found perfectly preserved fossils of feathers that included melanosome structures. The pigmentation of these fragments indicates what color these creatures were.
Arctic permafrost is rapidly melting. It cannot but touch us allWhy your spouse's snoring is bad for your health too: a new study
“Not everyone can admit it”: Tarkhanova revealed the secret desire of the actors
“This is one of the most amazing things that happened in my practice, ” says Brusatte. “For example, the small-sized carnivorous dinosaur Sinosauropteryx, which lived in northeastern China, most likely had a striped brown tail, and its face was painted like a raccoon.”
The dinosaurs were gigantic.
Of course, the skeletons of large species attracted the attention of paleontologists in the first place. But scientists know that dinosaurs were of different sizes and shapes.
Long-haired sauropods, like a dreadnought, were as big as passenger planes. “But many dinosaurs were very small, even the size of a dove, ” says Brusatte.
Fossils of almost all dinosaur species found
Paleontologists were able to identify 700 species of dinosaurs, but this is a drop in the ocean. In fact, scientists have 10, 000 species.
The stubborn dog ate the hostess's engagement ring, decorated with diamonds and sapphires
How easy it is to lose weight: sleep for 8 hours, and other things15 000 euros for water: the Briton is selling a snowball that has been lying in the freezer for 10 years
Fossils are discovered quite often, on average every week. Most often, finds are made in countries such as China, Argentina and Brazil.
The remains of many species were reconstructed in the form of a skeleton and exhibited as museum exhibits.
Mammals evolved after dinosaurs became extinct
The ancestor of mammals is a reptile called cynodont. She looked like a rat, covered in scales, and lived about 200 million years ago, before the dinosaurs. Then the mammals degenerated into marsupial placental species. This happened about 165 million years ago, when the era of the dinosaurs was flourishing.
As soon as the dinosaurs disappeared, mammals began to diversify and spread around the world and acquire larger sizes.
Dinosaurs are the ancestors of large reptiles.
True friends will gather here: ideas of rooms where men will always be fine
Ideal for pasta, potatoes, any cereals: mushrooms "Universal"
"American daughter" Malinina has arrived in Russia and is suing her father
Flying reptiles, such as pterosaurs (including pterodactyls), and marine reptiles, such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, were not dinosaurs, although they existed in the same period, but they suffered the same fate during the mass extinction.
They are often considered dinosaurs, although they belong to their separate categories. But Brusatte claims: "In fact, there were flying dinosaurs - birds!"
Dinosaurs could move at high speed
“Some dinosaurs did have a high speed of movement. Usually predatory species possessed this feature, but some were slow, ”says Brusatte.
The tyrannosaurus was getting straight, like Godzilla
Researchers from the 1960s found that the dinosaur actually had to hold its body horizontally, like a giant swing. Cornell paleontologist asked students to depict a tyrannosaurus, and most of them were painted standing straight.
“I think popular culture is usually not able to catch up with modern scientific thinking, ” Brusatte says. “Even when updated images appear, outdated ones are still preserved and distributed along with new ones.”
Tyrannosaurus was a dangerous hunter
The popular theory of the 1990s was based on the fact that this tyrannosaurus rex was not inherent in aggression, and in fact he was picking up pieces of carcasses left after the hunt of other predators.
This theory is wrong. “It is unlikely that such a large animal with 50 spiked teeth was not a predator, ” says Brusatte.
Tyrannosaurus hunted stegosaurus
This is a real myth. These species lived in completely different periods. Stegosaurus lived about 150 million years ago, and the Tyrannosaurus evolved about 67 million years ago.
