Talk:Dinosaur

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Birds are not Dinosaurs

Saying a bird is a dinosaur because they evolved from dinosaurs is like saying I'm really a modern mouse. 71.211.221.149 (talk) 20:48, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

But humans didn't evolve from mice. Saying birds are dinosaurs is more like saying humans are apes. Which is true. MMartyniuk (talk) 20:50, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

MMartyniuk is right. Birds are descended from dinosaurs and they form one group, the same way humans are descended from earlier hominids and form one group under apes. It makes more sense if you look at a cladogram. Cadiomals (talk) 21:10, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

It is really a matter of language conventions: From a phylogenetical POW birds are dinosaurs. In normal parlance birds have evolved from dinosaurs. The two things really means the same thing, it is just a matter of how you choose to express yourself. The evolutionary history of birds was discovered not really that long ago, making it a kind of palaentological fade to stress the connection using "are". You won't hear the same people make a point of saying we are fish all the time, though phylogeneticaly it is equally true. Petter Bøckman (talk) 07:54, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm not a fish, that isn't true at all. I agree trying to say birds are dinosaurs is a fad based on still disputed theories of their evolutionary history, but even if dinosaurs evolved into birds, birds are still not dinosaurs. And when I said a modern mouse, I wasn't saying people evolved from mice as they now exist, I was trying to say that the mammals that existed 65 million years ago were largely mouse-like, and one branch of them evolved into us, but that doesn't make me "really" a modern version of a Hadrocodium. And say we instead went in the other direction, and 65 million years from now birds had evolved somehow back into dinosaurs (I know this is highly unlikely, but barring total extinction of birds they will evolve into something, perhaps even something that looks reptilian like). Are you really going to tell me that dinosaur looking thing is really a bird because it evolved from a bird? What form would birds have to evolve into to cease being dinosaurs, or are all descendents of dinosaurs dinosaurs forever now? 71.211.221.149 (talk) 08:22, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

How far would humans have to evolve to cease being tetrapods? "Tetrapods" means four limbs, but even snakes are still considered tetrapods, so what would it take? The correct answer is nothing. Once a tetrapod, always a tetrapod. Once a dinosaur, always a dinosaur. "Fish" is different because it doesn't correspond to any scientifically recognized group, similar to "worm" or "beast". There is a formal group Dinosauria--anything which is a member of Dinosauria is a dinosaur. MMartyniuk (talk) 08:53, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I suppose I should have said bony fish rather than "fish", sigh, I never learn... 71.211.221.149 is however right in that the normal phylogenetic wording does not sit well when used out of context. We should be aware that phylogenetic nomenclature is not the common norm and need a bit of explanation before we start arguing that we are colonial choanoflagellates.

To 71.211.221.149: The evolution of birds from dinosaurs isn't really disputed any more. There's a host of fossils that has been unearthed the last 15 years or so showing the transition in all it's feathery details. Have a look at List of transitional fossils#Dinosaurs to birds to see some of them. Petter Bøckman (talk) 21:56, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the common usage by laypeople is different from its usage in phylogenetics. We are technically highly evolved fish, but laypeople would misunderstand and scoff at that.Cadiomals (talk) 22:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

If we are to be really strict about it, we aren't even highly evolved fish, just fish. Nothing is "more" evolved than anything else, technically that is. Most highly evolved species on the planet? I'd say the earthworm. Petter Bøckman (talk) 22:26, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm proud to be a fish (in the phylogenetic sense) but this is the whole grade/clade argument all over again. The explanation can't get much clearer in this article. It might be a good idea to include a template like Template:Evolutionary biology that links to some basic evolutionary concepts that most laypeople seem to struggle with, especially since this is such a high-traffic article. Smokeybjb (talk) 03:29, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Nah, I think explaining it in the text as now is better. We might have a look at the wording, and explain how phylogeny differ from classification and the normal use of language. Petter Bøckman (talk) 12:20, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Change in temporal range

I am considering changing the temporal range of dinosaurs in the infobox from Late Triassic-Late Cretaceous to simply Late Triassic-recent. I think this is important is it displays current scientific consensus based on modern cladistic classification, that birds aren't simply the descendents of dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs and continue to be part of the dinosaur group. This means that dinosaurs survive to the present and I think it is important to show that no distinction is made in the temporal range. Almost all scientists agree that birds aren't just a distinguished group that evolved from dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs, at least according to modern phylogenetics. Anyone else wanna weigh in on this? Cadiomals (talk) 07:20, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The sentence "birds aren't simply the descendents of dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs" is entirely a questiuon of semantics. You can equally well say that tetrapods are not just descendants of elpistostegalian fish, they are elpistostegalians, or that insects are not just descendants of crustaceans, they are crustaceans. Sure, from a phylogenetic POW you are absolutely right, but phylogeny is not the sole criterium for how things are understood. To 99% percent of people having heard about dinosaurs (i.e. all people who are not phylogenetic nomenclaturists) the term "dinosaur" means non-avian dinosaurs, even though the ancestry of birds being fairly well known thanks to Jurassic Park. The more common "have evolved from" emphasize the anatomical, physiological and ecological distinctness of the birds as compared to their ancestors. What birds "are" is really a metaphysical question, and as such not something you resolve simply by pointing at a phylogenetic tree.

The phylogenetical nomenclature of the dinosaurs is amply covered in the article and in the lede. The current range shows quite correctly that the majority of dinosaur lineages died out at the end of Cretaceous, with only a small highly divergent line surviving to the present. Are you suggesting this is somehow wrong? Petter Bøckman (talk) 21:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I took so long to respond, I didn't see this till now. But in short, I completely see your point of view and realize you're totally right. That is why I asked first before changing it, because I always make sure to hear other people's opinions as it lets me see the flaws in my own. Cadiomals (talk) 01:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

And I'm sorry if a came across a bit strong, I didn't mean to. It's just that we seem to have this or related debates every month or so. Again sorry. Petter Bøckman (talk) 19:12, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Cadiomals' proposed change has my unconditional support. Abyssal (talk) 16:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree while noting Peter Bockman's arguments are also sound and that this is an issue of semantics. however all serious workers in the field include birds among traditional dinosaurs, even in a vast majority of current popular and children's books. If this doesn't have consensus nothing does. Specifically, "from a phylogenetic POW you are absolutely right, but phylogeny is not the sole criterium for how things are understood." It is in modern dinosaur paleontology, for better or worse. "To 99% percent of people having heard about dinosaurs (i.e. all people who are not phylogenetic nomenclaturists) the term "dinosaur" means non-avian dinosaurs" there are numerous popular works in print, TV documentaries, etc. where scientists go out of their way to paint this as a misconception, again for better or worse, but that's the verifiable consensus, which is what wiki needs to follow. MMartyniuk (talk) 17:26, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Can we just end this now? Because this is basically becoming a repeat of the conversation above. I started this discussion, and I changed my mind because I think Peter is right. If we're going to say birds are dinosaurs (which, they of course are) we may as well also be saying humans are sarcopterygian fish. I think this article makes clear the bird-dinosaur relationship. This subject has been discussed before and I just don't want it to be repeated. I guess its my fault. The current temporal range is completely fine. Cadiomals (talk) 23:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Dinoguy, I fail to see this as being the view of the "majority of current popular and children's books", and I work in an institution which sells those books and am a father to boot, so I think I would have noticed. It may again be a cultural thing. I have seen a few translated children's dino-books from the USA using phylogenetic nomenclature, but not from Britain or other countries. The same goes for TV-documentaries. Most dino-programs shown where I live are BBC-productions anyway (heck, even Primeval aired here), programs like Dinosaur Revolution haven't. Besides, while the birds-are-dinosaurs is all the rage among dinosaur studies (and to a large degree in other vertebrate palaentology fields), dino-studies is a rather small field. The views of the field ought to be expressed clearly (which it is) and the history and use of terms ought to be covered (which they are). If we are to take the birds-are-dinosaurs stance seriously, this article need a thorough rewrite, and will in my humble opinion not become a better and more informative article. Petter Bøckman (talk) 14:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

"Besides, while the birds-are-dinosaurs is all the rage among dinosaur studies (and to a large degree in other vertebrate palaentology fields), dino-studies is a rather small field." So I see this as the central question. should the article "Dinosaur" reflect the consensus view of scientists who work on dinosaurs, however small or large that field may be, or should it reflect the consensus usage in other, unrelated fields? In other words, how this subject is treated in the article Dinosaur vs the article Bird or vertebrate should not necessarily be the same (and probably cannot be made the same without violating verifiability). I watched Dinosaur Revolution and in the last episode several of the talking heads explicitly endorsed birds-are-dinosaurs, by the way. MMartyniuk (talk) 14:52, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I mentioned the Dinosaur revolution as an example of a specifically American program that has not aired over here, to support that there may be a cultural aspect to this discussion.

Let's square away the obvious first: a) We all agree where the birds came from and that the known phylogeny needs to be stated unambiguously, b) we all agree "are" vs. "evolved from" is a semantic rather than phylogenetic distinction, c) we all agree the use of terms in dino-studies needs to be clearly expressed, d) we all agree dinosaur studies is kind of a special case when it comes to the use of phylogenetic nomenclature, e) and we all agree this nomenclature sees extremely limited use outside academic circles. Right?

As far as I can see that leaves us with two basic topics under discussion: 1) name of article, and 2) coverage of article. What do we want to put into this article? I would like an article about non-avian dinosaurs, and I would like an article about birds. Both these articles exists. What should they be called? Do we want an article about dinosaurs in the full sense (with e.g. equal weight to extinct and extant critters)? If not, what do we want? Who wants to write what? What do Wikipedias readers want? What names would be expected on what articles, given Wikipedias article name conventions?

Personally, I fail to see a solution much different from the present one being desirable or even practical. Petter Bøckman (talk) 19:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I think a good example to follow is Primate. This article does a great job of outlining what primates are, the fact that they include humans, but still manages to talk about primates in general, using the clunky yet useful term "non-human primate" when necessary. "I would like an article about non-avian dinosaurs" why? What exactly can be said about non-avian dinosaurs that cannot also be said about birds? The only thing i can think of is "they're extinct", which is only true if you exclude birds and so is an outdated concept based on circular logic. Of course everyone wants a separate article on birds, nobody is arguing the two should be merged, any more than we should merge Dinosaur and Titanosaur. MMartyniuk (talk) 19:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, dear, look what I've done. I told you guys I didn't want to start something like this again. Cadiomals (talk) 20:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, there's a slight difference between primates-humans and dinosaurs-birds. In one the excluded group is a single species (or a handful, if you count the stem), in the other it is a whooping great group. And then there's the extant-extinct aspect of things. If you seriously want an article about the dinosaurs the clade rather than the grade, then there need to be a substantial rewrite to include the vast topics of birds. Otherwise, the article will be so much lip service to the dinosaurs-are-birds idea. A comparable example is Tetrapod, which is all about stem tetrapod fish and labyrinthodonts, ignoring the extant groups. Mammals and birds are mentioned in the lede and in the classification only. If Tetrapoda is a clade (and I have never heard it used otherwise) then it needs to deal with evolution of lungs and blood vessels and all that jazz in all groups (it's on my to-do list).

You are free to not find an article covering dinosaurs in the traditional sense interesting, but the number of hits on this article indicate quite a few others do not share then view. Number of hits alone make it obviously there should be an article covering the grad. This one does a decent job of it. Should there be one covering the clade too? I'm not much of an ornithologists, I'm afraid I won't be much help. Petter Bøckman (talk) 21:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

...you mean you STILL haven't fixed it?

Um... I was here over a year ago and... the article is still as wrong as ever. It's the year 2012 now. We've known birds are dinosaurs for a very, VERY long time now in the sense of paleontology (which moves ridiculously fast in regard to dinosaurs), and yet the "mighty" wikipedia still treats what is outside of it's little bubble common knowledge as a controversial heated debate?

Sorry, guys, birds are dinosaurs, dinosaurs aren't extinct. If you have some sort of idealogical problem with that, I can't help you, but I'm sure there are other wikis which would revel in hearing all about the ignorance and misconceptions that are holdovers from the late 1950's. No really, you need to start growing up now.

Tell you what, wikipedia, I'll give you one more chance. I'll come back in a week, or maybe a month. Then I'll go directly to this page and look ONLY at the taxobox. That's it. You don't have to maintain a neutral point of view or one-author feel to the page itself, I understand that requires thinking and I know you're incapable of that, so all you have to do is fix the taxobox. That's all. Change the part that's wrong, specifically where it mentions that dinosaurs are extinct, and that's all you have to do.

I understand there's a lot of politics involved in this sort of nonsense, but I'll be honest, I have no interest in it. In short, I believe this page CAN be saved. The problems with the tone I can actually do myself. The problems with inconsistent information can be solved as well as long as you quit reverting the frakking page. Outdated information can be updated, there are plenty of readily available recent sources to work with. Omitted information can be added to if we work as a team to create short sections summarizing information from more detailed, respectable pages. It IS possible. I'm not just about talking big either, I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and get it done. But with all of the politics and time travelers from the 1950's, it's hard for one person to do alone. And I'll be honest, it would be easier to just give up on you. Still, your google monopoly makes this hard to ignore, and if you really want to help educate the public, I think that's a cause worth fighting for.

The absolute least you can do is fix the taxobox. If you can't even accomplish this, then there's just no hope. Cultistofvertigo (talk) 02:37, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you just go do it yourself instead of insulting the editors here? You're as much responsible as everyone else. It's a public wiki. de Bivort 03:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I have answered Cultistofvertigo on his talk page. Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

From your reply:"Filling the article with discussions on birdsong, plumage and anatomical adaptions to different styles of flight between discussions of stratigraphy, dermal armour, teeth and hipbones would not make it better." This is a strawman if I've ever seen one. Adding bird-specific topics to this page would be utterly ridiculous. As would adding specifics about sauropod rearing postures or oviraptorid nesting styles. Sections like the one on dermal armour, which evolved several times in different groups of dinosaurs, are appropriate. Sections on flight, which probably arose only in one subgroup, may or may not be appropriate. Sections on birdsong or whiplash tails, which are highly specific their subgroups, would not be appropriate. The point of a page about Dinosaurs is to give an overview of the group as a whole. Anything in this article that is specific to one particular subgroup of dinosaurs, be it birds or pachycephalosaurs, should be removed. MMartyniuk (talk) 14:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Birds are clearly acknowledged in this article as dinosaurs. It's everywhere, and it's obvious. You can even see it in the lead. What you have to understand, Mr. CultistofVertigo, is that this is a general article meant for the general public. There needs to not only be an acknowledgement that birds are considered dinosaurs by the scientific community (which is clearly mentioned a number of times in the article) but a distinction made between birds and the non-avian dinosaurs that most of the general public associates the word "dinosaur" with. While we need to be scientifically accurate we also need to consider the 8th grader who knows nothing about dinosaurs who may well be reading this right now. "The very least you can do is fix the taxobox"... No, I think we've already decided against that. We need to continue to both connect and make the distinction between birds and dinosaurs and be considerate of that uneducated 8th grader who could get confused. How scientists look at things and how the general public looks at things is very different. If you really have such a huge problem with this, instead of insulting Wikipedia and insulting the users why not make some changes yourself? I notice that too much. Certain editors complain and complain about the flaws in an article and seem to have forgotten they have the full ability to fix it themselves. Laziness, maybe? Cadiomals (talk) 16:13, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

"How scientists look at things and how the general public looks at things is very different." Yes, sort of like the way the general public believes plesiosaurs to be dinosaurs or whales to be fish. We have to reinforce the errors in layman's understandings rather than teach them science. An encyclopedia is no place for education. MMartyniuk (talk) 16:23, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

You misunderstood what I was trying to say, MMartyniuk. We need to be considerate of the general public, not support their misconceptions. I'm going to repeat this again: The fact that birds are dinosaurs has already been clearly acknowledged in this article. In fact I recently made a small change to the taxonomy section further reinforcing that, if you want to check it out. But if we completely get rid of the distinction between avian and non-avian dinosaurs we may end up confusing many laymen. Cadiomals (talk) 16:37, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

My point is only this--people want to exclude birds to avoid having lots of bird-specific stuff. We should not have ANY specific stuff. this is a general overview of all dinosaurs. There is no fact that can be said about Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus that cannot also apply to an ostrich. If any fact that's not merely an interesting anecdote is in the article that applies only to one kind of dinosaur but not all others, it needs to be on a more specific page. Therefore there is no need to "draw distinction" or be "overly inclusive" here. We just have to make sure everything applies to all dinosaurs, birds included, in an accurate way. I've already done much of the tweaks necessary for this today, and almost all were just that--small tweaks. Nothing major. Would you say this article is more confusing now than it was an hour ago? MMartyniuk (talk) 18:35, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, there are things to be said about Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops that do not apply to an ostrich. Adult size is one thing (size in general in Dinosauria (trad.)), dermal armour, teeth, speculations on reproduction and social life, the fact that we aren't really sure about their temperature regulation etc. See? There are interesting things to be said about dinosaurs! There's a reason Dinosauria (trad.) is an evolutionary grade, an not a wastebasket taxon. As for the bird information being a straw man, we would have to have some specifics and examples, and considering our knowledge of birds is vastly better than of dinosaurs, it would reasonably clog up the article. The "people believe plesiosaurs are dinosaurs" isn't exactly a kosher argument in that regard either. Petter Bøckman (talk) 19:43, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

There is hardly any controversy surrounding the fact that birds are dinosaurs anymore, it's just not widely accepted by some laypeople because they don't like the idea of the cute little featherball that wakes them up each morning with its singing being connected to a cold, reptilian killer from the mists of time, and thus many still pretend that birds aren't dinosaurs. Yet even more strangely, many of those same laypeople readily accept pterosaurs as both birds and dinosaurs, when in actuality they are neither, although they do share a close evolutionary relationship with both groups. Anywho, the taxobox has been changed the last time I checked so there's no need for this discussion to go on any further.

Dinosaur intelligence?

The lede states:

Most research conducted since the 1970s, however, has indicated that ancient dinosaurs, like modern birds, were active, intelligent animals with elevated metabolisms and numerous adaptations for social interaction.

The text indicate dinosaur intelligence (which was really varied) was on par with that of modern birds. Now, surely they were not turtle sluggish, but even the most brainy dinosaur (Troodon) had an encephalization quotient below that of birds. This means a chicken would outsmart a Troodon, not to mention Velociraptor. Some of the large plant eaters would have been really limited. The Victorian "dim witted" is likely an apt description. Small brains do not only affect behaviour, the body is also controlled by the brain, meaning animals like Stegosaurus and Ancylosaurus would have have a limited range of movements. I suggest toning it down a bit. Petter Bøckman (talk) 20:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Correct on all counts. The smartest Mesozoic dinosaurs based on pure EQ were likely neornithines. Then yanornithids, then enantiornithines, then confuciusornithids, then archaeopterygids, then troodontids. People always speculate what would have happened if dinosaurs survived the extinction... well, the smartest ones did, and they resulted in crows and African Greys, not dinosauroids ;) MMartyniuk (talk) 21:28, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

A neat way to put it! Petter Bøckman (talk) 22:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

EQ is a pretty meaningless factor if you are comparing animals of significantly different body weight. That's caused by the fact that larger mass requires larger afferent and efferent fibres, but that logical decisions do not grow with size. I'd be really careful using EQs outside one order of magnitude, and even for doubling of weight it may massively mislead you.

Simply said: why should a decision making process require more telencephalic matter in Apatosaurus than in Gallus? It should not - but the brain stem and spinal cord should be much larger. Also given the distance of communication large dinosaurs were very likely slower - but that's exactly what we see in extant animals, too.

"dim witted" is definitively not supported (nor countered) by EQs. If we look at the amount of input (estimated from the relative sizes of various lobes), we may get a better picture. Animals capable of orientation in a highly complex 3D geometry, and capable of handling the required data (e.g. bat and birds) have enlarged areas dealing with the related sensory inputs. There was a SVP talk last fall that showed quite large olfactory areas in many archosaurs, comparable to dogs etc. That would be an indication that these animals were capable of orientation via smell roughly as good as smart animals today. HMallison (talk) 18:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure you are referring to encephalization quotient and not Brain-to-body mass ratio? The EQ is the formula devised for giving reasonable answers for mice and whales. As for size difference, both Archaeopteryx, Troodon and Velociraptor fall within the size range of modern birds, so the comparison should be straight forward. Flight is likely a complicating factor though, but it indicate the "highly intelligent" trait sometimes attributed to them is suspect, hence I remoced the reference to birds (behaviour of crows and parrots are certainly not a relevant comparison here).

I quite agree an animal like Ankylosaurus would have had a lot of in/out enervation compared to brain size, but I fail to see how a 6 ton animal with an 80 gram brain could have much behavioural complexity when compared to a mammal. The term "dim witted" must be understood as a comparative term, with present day fauna (i.e mammals when we are talking about this size). Petter Bøckman (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I am talking about EQ - remember that it is a) empiric, and b) thus limited to an order of magnitude smaller than dinosaurs. The comparison is not straightforward even for those dinosaurs that fall within the same range, because (as you pointed out) you are comparing highly adept fliers (with according need for a large optical lobe and excellent 3D orientation and extremely good memory) to non- or barely-fliers. Plotting the EQs for narrower categories, however, gives enormous error bars. Oops!

I agree that dinosaurs were overall likely less intelligent than mammals. Thus, crows and parrots should not be used as a general comparison. On the other hand, "dim-witted" in the sense of a crocodile, iguana or turtle (which is what Victorians had in mind) is certainly an underestimation of your average dinosaur. HMallison (talk) 15:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

For the magnitude scale, whales were used to get the EQ line, and some of them are fairly large, so I don't think your size criticism is valid. What's really wrong with EQ in this matter is that it is a strictly mammalian measure, and it is clear mammals and reptiles use their brains differently. A lot of the brain in mammals appear to be occupied with keeping track of the body, to a much larger degree than in reptiles. Then again, the mammalian brain has on average an order of magnitude higher EQ than reptiles.

For what it's worth, I agree turtles are not a good indication of "average" dinosaur intelligence. They are highly specialized and armoured besides, so they should by all expectations be "dim-witted". How dim-witted crocodiles really are is another question. Their amphibious habit make them cold blooded and slow, but they can show some very interesting behaviour when they want to. I would assume a more active and less specialized animal like e.g. Allosaurus to be a good deal quicker both of body and mind. I do not insist on describing the dinosaurs as a whole as dim-witted, but perhaps ad a sentence to the effect of "some of the more heavily armoured dinosaurs and the larger sauropods had extremely small brains, and would have very limited behavioural complexity" or something like that. Petter Bøckman (talk) 07:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't go so far to say that you can even make these claims. If you add two or three qualifiers to the sentences - OK. Otherwise.... what do we know about the internal structure (i.e., cross-connectivity) of the sauropod cortex? HMallison (talk) 19:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

We know absolutely squat about the internal structures of a sauropod brain, but as a zoologist I would be hard pressed to come up with a scenario where a 30 ton low quality plant food eating vertebrate with the brain size of an apple could have any sort of behavioral complexity. Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

See, faulty assumptions: 30 t high-quality plant foot eater, with a central nervous system that's proportionally as large as that of most mammals...... see what I am driving at? The brain of a sauropod is larger than that of a rat. If we assume (out of thin air) that a rat uses 50% of the brain for "logical" decisions, and the rest relates to body size because it correlates with peripheral nerves, how big does a sauropod brain have to be for the animal to be equally smart? Well, that depends on how much of the sauropod brain is really "outside communication", and how much is "logic" - and we have no clue. As I said: a decision (for example) does not require more neurons or a more complicated network just because you're bigger. HMallison (talk) 13:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Only the sauropod brain is not proportionally as large as that of a mammal, it falls in the reptilian range, and is much, much smaller than that of a comparable mammal. A large male humpback whale weighs 30 tons. It's brain is 4,5 to 5 kilos. It is not even a particularly bright whale, the sperm whale has almost 8 kilos of brain for half the body weight. Again, Diplodocus had a brain the size of a fist. Sorry, not buying your argument. The total central nervous system might be proportionally as large, but animals don't think with their nerve chord.

There's an article on dinosaur EQ, putting it squarely in the reptilian range, and Diplodocus at the lower margin of the range as well: Hopson, J.A. (1977): Relative Brain Size and Behavior in Archosaurian Reptiles, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics vol 8 (1977), pp 429-448. I haven't had time to read it properly, will report back when I have. Petter Bøckman (talk) 14:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

You keep using mammalian standards - the animals where in extreme cases you can drive a crowbar through the brain and all that happens is that anger management changes - for animals the brains of which we know practically nothing about. Sorry, but your defeatist attitude doesn't make sense. "We don't know" means "we don't know", not "They must have been STOOPID because they did not write a sonnet".

And you continue to miss the point: I did not say animals think with their spinal chord. I said that as long as we do not know anything about the internal structure of their brains, we can't be sure that comparing brain size makes sense. HMallison (talk) 19:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Come on, these are tetrapod brains, how different internally can they be? They are similar enough to brains of modern reptiles and birds to allow for fairly detailed analysis' of the relative function of the various parts, see Evolution of the sense of smell in dinosaurs and birds for an example. So I would say (or rather, the scientists at the Royal Tyrrell Museum says) we pretty much can say something about dinosaur intelligence based on their brain casts. You suggestion that the brain of sauropods could have been somehow uniquely structured to allow for more complex behaviour than size alone would indicate, is an ad hoc hypothesis, and as such would require some independent evidence. Petter Bøckman (talk) 07:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I just had the chance to read through Hopsons article. Here are some highlights:

• Dinosaur EQ varied across the whole group, but generally stayed within the reptilian range with some of the carnivores falling between reptilian and avian EQ.
• The EQ did not correlate with size, low and high EQ were found across the size spectrum
• EQ did however vary with food quality:
  • Plant eating bulk feeders with cropping teeth only (Sauropods and thyreophorans) had very low EQ
  • Plant eaters with some chewing capability (Ceratopsians) has medium low EQ
  • Plant eaters with high chewing capacity (Hadrosaurs) had medium to high EQ, even surpassing some of the less brainy meat eaters by a good margin
  • Meat eaters generally had medium to high EQ, small coelurasurs approaching avian values.
• Heavily armoured, armed or very large plant eaters thought to be able to stand their ground against predators had low EQ, while those lacking such defences and would have to rely on speed and acute senses for protection, had high EQ
• Animals with assumed high cursorial speed (lightly built animals) had higher EQ than those with low speed (heavily built animals)

Relevant to our discussion, Hopson noted the sauropods (despite him assuming their brain filled the whole the whole brain case) had extremely low EQ, at the very lower range for reptiles. He simply state he will refrain from drawing conclusions on their behaviour based on this. He really wanted to point out dinosaurs had not been the dim-witted creatures of Victorian view, but when it comes to sauropods, the raw data (if taken at face value) really indicate otherwise. Lower end of the reptilian range place them in the legue of turtles.

Interestingly, Hopson also concluded that the pterosaurs had a fairly low EQ, well within typical reptilian range, indicating that high EQ is not a pre prerequisite for flying per se. The high EQ in small coelurosaurs (surpassing that of Archaeopteryx in some cases), indicate the high EQ evolved before flight, not as a result of it. Hopson suggest pterosaurs were plains- and costal dwellers, while the avian ancestors were forest dwellers, which would be more complex and put higher demand on the vision.

It is a very interesting read, and I suggest you give it a go. If you can't access it, I'll copy it and e-mail it to you. Petter Bøckman (talk) 12:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)