Types of dinosaurs, animals that do not exist. Unusual dinosaurs Ancient dinosaurs and their names
They probably lie in the movies: what if in life real dinosaurs were simple-minded, slow, vulnerable, good-natured people? MAXIM's paleontology editor responds with this list of the most dangerous giant lizards.
Oleg "Orange" Bocharov
The hero of many frightening films, the ominous and carnivorous pteranodon, in real life (just like pterodactyls and rhamphorans) ate mainly fish, paying little attention to people. True, it should be taken into account that there were no people then. If he lived in our time, he would pose a considerable danger, since with a 15-meter wingspan and a weighty beak, he can kill purely by accident, with one sneeze, while trying to take a can of delicious sprats from a person.
It is similar to a Tyrannosaurus rex and is often replaced in many films when the Tyrannosaurus is unavailable or sick (for example, in the film "A Sound of Thunder"). It is believed to have reached 8 and a half meters in length and 3 and a half meters in height. Scientists are debating whether Allosaurus was a collective animal or lived separately, outside the pack. There are two arguments here: on the one hand, allosaurus bones are found in bulk from many individuals. On the other hand, the creature was too aggressive to live together in a large society. However, to devour a person, even one Allosaurus, even the most recent outcast loser, is enough.
Known to science for a long time, since the nineteenth century. It weighed one and a half tons and was nine meters long. He ate other smaller lizards. There was something akin to a horn on the head, so Majungasaurus worked not only with its teeth, but also with its head. It is believed that he had poor vision, but had a strong sense of smell. So in modern times it could be used to find drugs and eat drug lords.
It is not clear why this creature was called Sarcosuchus. They would immediately call it “a huge crocodile”, and it would immediately be clear who they were talking about. The great-great-great-grandfather of the crocodile Gena grew up to 12 meters and fattened up to 6 tons. It is twice the size of any modern crocodile; if a sarcosuchus crosses the road, this is a very, very bad omen.
A four-ton predator 12 meters long. Scientists on the sidelines say that a more massive species of carchadontosaurs could live in Nigeria - 14 meters long and weighing 9 tons. He was a lone hunter, and he was probably pretty good at it. Most likely, he simply died out of boredom when he realized that he had already achieved everything in this life.
A true showbiz superstar, old T. rex is no longer considered the largest fossil land predator. Films are still made about him, books are written and stories are told, since it was the tyrannosaurus in old school curricula that was depicted as the main embodiment of evil. And yet paleontology does not stand still!
However, if the T. rex saw you, it wouldn’t stand still either - its pumped up hind legs carried a two-ton mass at breakneck speed, and its jaws could bite through the body armor of most herbivorous lizards. What can we say about you? You won't even hear him approaching in your headphones.
A seven-meter mobile school predator. The brain cavity in the cranium is closer in volume to birds than to other predatory lizards. Hence the logical conclusion of paleontologists that Utahraptor could have been more cunning and smarter than a typical dinosaur. But still, the Utahraptor was hardly such an insidious intellectual as Hollywood scriptwriters imagine it to be in a narcotic stupor - after all, birds are also different, compare the behavior of city sparrows and these hillbilly hens at your leisure.
In movies, Utahraptors are not as frequent guests as Velociraptors, which is strange, since Utahraptor is four times larger and just as many times more dangerous (according to police reports).
The largest complete skeleton of this African resident, after measurement, showed a length of 12 meters. However, there is good evidence to suggest the existence of specimens as long as 18 meters in length, so Spinosaurus may well be in contention for the top spot on this list. The Spinosaurus is an extremely unpleasant creature in appearance, according to the identikit. True, some paleontologists offer an alternative vision, even more unpleasant - with a hump and trunk - since, according to their version, he ate mainly fish. Check this at your first meeting.
How many types of dinosaurs do you know? Check out our list of the most famous dinosaur species.
Here you will be provided with material about all aspects of the life and appearance of dinosaurs. The Mesozoic era will be described in great detail. Our information is collected very carefully and does not miss even the smallest detail. The sources of our articles are modern domestic research and foreign paleontological developments. Our information will be of interest to both children and adults. It will be useful not only to the ordinary amateur, but also to scientists.
A majestic era in the life of our planet is that multi-million-year period of history when mysterious dinosaurs lived on Earth. So let's try to unravel their secrets!
Dinosaurs, who are they? Let's start with defining the type.
If we translate the Latin word “Dinosauria” from ancient Greek, we get the phrase “terrible lizard”. In 1842, the Englishman Richard Owen (a famous zoologist and paleontologist) introduced this term into science.
So, according to scientific classification, dinosaurs are a superorder (in rank definition) or a wide group of land reptiles that lived on Earth during the Mesozoic era, namely 231.4 - 66.2 million years ago. These animals had a number of similar characteristics. The main one was the constitution of the body, especially the pelvic bones. Further on the site you will see a comparative diagram of the hip region of different types of land dinosaurs. Let's look at the left model - it demonstrates the constitution of the pelvic bones of amphibians and a large group of reptiles. In this model, the paws are clearly placed on the sides and are quite curved. The model in the center refers to dinosaurs and mammals. The model on the right refers to Ravisuchus, which became extinct in the Triassic period.
In turn, representatives of dinosaurs are divided into 8 orders:
Ornithopoda, Pachycephalosauria, Ceratopsia, Ankylosauria, Stegosauria, Sauropoda, Theropoda and Therizinosauria.
The illustration shows a skeletal reconstruction model of each order created by specialist paleontologist Scot Hartman.
We would like to draw your attention to this fact: winged and sea lizards do not belong to dinosaurs; they are classified as separate orders of reptiles.
From ferocious theropods like Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spinosaurus to huge sauropods like Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus.
In 1888, a man named Harry Seely proposed classifying dinosaurs into two groups by looking at their hip joint structure, these groups called Saurischia (hipped lizard) and Ornithischia (hipped bird). These two groups can be divided into subgroups such as families, subfamilies, etc. Let's look at some of the interesting subgroups and examples of dinosaurs that are part of them.
Theropods
Theropods - The name Theropod means "beast foot" which literally translates to "best foot". This group includes all carnivorous (meat-eating) dinosaurs. An interesting fact is that birds actually evolved from theropods, and not from ornithischian (bird-like) dinosaurs. Theropods walked on two legs and included several scary-looking but popular dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor.
Sauropods
Sauropods - evolved and learned to walk on four limbs. They usually grew to enormous sizes. They were herbivores (eating plants). This species included classic dinosaurs such as Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus.
Ornithischian dinosaurs
Ornithischia - Thyreophora's name means "shield bearers". This group includes armored dinosaurs such as Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus. They were herbivores that lived throughout the Jurassic period until the Late Cretaceous.
Cerapods
Cerapods included many interesting groups such as Ceratopsian (horned) dinosaurs, Triceratops, as well as Ornithopod (bird) dinosaurs such as Iguanodon.
As you already know, dinosaurs are divided into two orders depending on their skeletal structure: lizard-hipped and ornithischian. These orders, in turn, are divided into infraorders, in each of which the dinosaurs are similar to each other in appearance.
The first lizard-hipped dinosaurs were predators. They ran on their strong hind legs and used their front legs to grab prey. They are called theropods, which means “beast-footed” in Latin. Theropods are divided into many families and infraorders, which include similar dinosaurs. There are a lot of them, so in our articles, for simplicity, we call all predators only theropods.
Giant herbivorous dinosaurs with long necks evolved from carnivorous theropods. They began to use all four legs to move. Such dinosaurs are called sauropodomorphs. This group of lizards is divided into two infraorders: sauropods, which means “lizard-footed” in Latin, and prosauropods, the ancestors of sauropods.
Suborders of ornithischian dinosaurs
Scientists conventionally divide all ornithischian dinosaurs into two suborders: cerapods and thyreophora. Cerapods include three infraorders: bird-footed ornithopods, horned ceratopsians and thick-headed pachycephalosaurs. Thyreophores include lizards with plates and bone growths that are arranged in longitudinal rows along the body. This suborder includes two infraorders: stegosaurs and ankylosaurs.
The first ornithischian dinosaurs were herbivores. They moved mainly on two legs, which in structure were very similar to birds. That's why they were called so - bird-footed, or ornithopods. Over time, they developed and became larger. As a result, all other groups of ornithischian dinosaurs appeared.
Stegosaurs are easily recognized by the spines on their tail and the plates on their back. Scientists have put forward different assumptions about why dinosaurs needed them, but have not yet been able to answer this question unequivocally. The entire infraorder is named after the most famous representative, the stegosaurus.
The ceratopsian infraorder is easily recognized by its massive heads, short neck, horns and curved beak-like snout. Translated from Latin, their name means “horned face.” Ceratopsians were of different sizes, but most were as tall as a bull or even an elephant. They could weigh several tons, so not every predator risked fighting such a formidable enemy. The most striking representative of this infraorder is Triceratops.
A characteristic feature of pachycephalosaurs is a strong skull with bone growths in the crown area. In the largest dinosaurs it was 20-25 cm thick. The entire infraorder is named after the most well-studied representative - the pachycephalosaur.
Ankylosaurs can be called the armored tanks of their time. Their bodies were covered with hard plates, bone growths and spines. These dinosaurs walked on four strong but short legs. The most famous representative of the infraorder is called the ankylosaur.
These giants dominated our planet for more than 160 million years, but at the end of the Cretaceous period they completely disappeared as a species. Scientists are still finding remains of dinosaurs that completely disappeared as a species about 66 million years ago. And even now their size is amazing!
In total, paleontologists count more than 1,000 species of dinosaurs, but only ten of them can be distinguished by a special feature. They do not have outstanding sizes, are not bloodthirsty, but are simply very strange.
10 Amargasaurus
This species was first described in 1991, after José Bonaparte discovered remains in the La Amarga quarry. A distinctive feature of this dinosaur is two rows of spines on the neck and back, approximately 65 centimeters long. Amargasaurus has no other outstanding qualities.
Scientists are still arguing why there were spikes on the back of this lizard. This design significantly reduced the dinosaur's mobility, so protection from predators was in doubt. We can definitely say that the male Amagasaurus had longer spines, which means it used them for mating games.
9 Concavenator
This carnivorous dinosaur was first discovered in 2003, and scientists are still debating its strange skeleton. The concavenator had a small body about 6 meters long and a strange feature - a hump between the 11th and 12th vertebrae of the skeleton.
The hump did not serve any useful function, just like the bumps in the bones of the concavenator’s forearms. But paleontologists were able to take a fresh look at the theory of the relationship between birds and dinosaurs, because before this, feather rudiments had not been observed in any relative of this dinosaur.
8 Kosmoceratops
Another strange representative of this species belongs to the horned dinosaurs. Perhaps this is where all its advantages end. The name Kosmoceratops does not come from the word cosmos, but means ornate in ancient Greek.
And it is really, very richly decorated! Kosmoceratops had 15 horns, and in terms of their number, it is the most equipped dinosaur. True, there was no point in them, except that the beautiful horns came in handy during mating games.
7 Kulindadromeus transbaikalensis
This miracle animal, as the name implies, was discovered in Russia, in the Kulinda Valley in 2010. Since then, the minds of scientists have not stopped digesting information, because Culindadronius has violated all conceivable theories about dinosaurs.
It belongs to the group of ornithischian dinosaurs, but does not have wings (or their rudiments). All previously found representatives of this group did not even have feather rudiments, which caused discussions in the scientific world. So far, it has been established that feathers were used by this dinosaur to maintain warmth and for mating games.
6 Notronichus
This wonderful dinosaur belongs to the genus of therapods (predators), but is a herbivore. His remains were discovered in 1998 on a ranch in New Mexico. It had a rather impressive weight - 5.1 tons and a height of about 5 meters.
Now imagine a giant sloth standing on the ground. This is exactly what this dinosaur looked like, which greatly surprised paleontologists. Its huge claws were a completely unnecessary adaptation, given its herbivory. Nootronichus was very, very slow because of the claws...
5 Oryctodrome
This ornithischian dinosaur had a very unusual property for its species. Small, only 2.1 meters long and weighing 22 kg, it looked like a modern mole or rabbit.
Yes, oryctodromeus dug holes and hid in them from predators. It looks like a pretty cute wombat, only many times larger. The spectacle was obviously funny - a dinosaur that lives in a hole and digs the ground with its claws!
4 Ganzhousaurus
This species was discovered in the province of the same name in China in 2013. Scientifically it is called Qianzhousaurus, and in everyday life it is called “Pinocchio dinosaur”. In practice, he is a tyrannosaurus, only slightly modified.
The fact is that the Ganzhousaurus has a very long jaw, the structure of which defies explanation. Their cousins, tyrannosaurs, have a very massive skull that could withstand powerful blows. Why would a Pinocchio dinosaur, with the same body structure, have a long jaw that cannot withstand the load is a real mystery.
3 Rhinorex
This species belongs to the genus of herbivorous hadrosaurids, but differs from them in one feature in the structure of the skull. Rhinorex simply has a huge nasal plate that defies any explanation.
The purpose of this dinosaur's nose has been debated by scientists for many years. Like his relatives, he did not have a special sense of smell, so such a growth on the nose is meaningless from the point of view of convenience. The duck-billed dinosaur is still being studied and researched by paleontologists.
2 Stygomoloch
Oh, his name already inspires fear - translated it is “horned demon from the river of hell.” This herbivorous dinosaur had a domed skull with horns located at the back.
The name stygimoloch comes from mythology - Moloch (a Semitic deity) and Styx (a nymph in Hades). Scientists are still arguing why he needed such a strange skull and have come to the conclusion that these are again mating games. Stygomoloch fought his opponents with the help of his convex forehead and horns.
1 Yutyrannus
This type of dinosaur was related to the Tyrannosaurus rex, although the difference is immediately visible. It was covered with short, chicken-like feathers, about 15 centimeters long. He was a predator, although at first glance he did not look at all intimidating in these feathers.
Moreover, it weighed quite a lot, about two tons. Findings of such dinosaurs increasingly lead scientists to believe that all representatives of this species first had feathers, and then lost them during evolution.
Humanity is lucky that these powerful creatures became extinct many millions of years ago. Even the strangest and most absurd of them could destroy a person with one blow.