Talk:Dinosaur

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Less technical introduction?

Perhaps the best way to satisfy laypeople whose eyes glaze over when they find little in the article of what they expected would be a generally accessible, less technical introduction, comparable to Introduction to evolution. In that article, simplified trees could be shown which give an overview and contrast the current technical definition with lay concepts of "dinosaurs". It can provide lists of highly recognisable species that laypeople tend to be most interested in, links to non-dinosaur sauropsids that are typically discussed in the same context in popular accounts (Dimetrodon, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs) so that people will not be confused at their absence but educated about the taxonomy, discussion of records such as largest and smallest, etc. I realise that a lot of this has already been incorporated into the article, but perhaps it is still a bit too much buried there for the general reader. Evaluating feedback from outsiders, whether personally prompted or collected automatically, should provide useful indications if the needs of the readers are met. (Strangely, I can't find the link to the feedback section on this talk page.) Unfortunately, I can't be of much help with this, being a layman myself, however, even if one who is (I'd think) much more comfortable with highly technical articles than the average reader. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Florian!

The feedback section for this article is at the very bottom of Dinosaur, under the navigation templates. I agree that a simplified tree diagram could help the article. The General description portion of the article does try to point out that many "pop culture" 'dinosaurs', like the ones you mention, are not dinosaurs. Perhaps this fact could be re-added to the lead of the article (it used to be there). Firsfron of Ronchester 01:26, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for being unclear, I meant the subpage where comments from readers are collected and can be inspected by editors. I have found links to such subpages on other talk pages, somewhere in the templates on the top, but not here.

I do suspect that lay readers would like to find links to popular real dinosaur genera and species such as Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Iguanodon, Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Diplodocus or Velociraptor in the article, too, not only mention of the "pseudo-dinosaurs". It might be difficult to find a source for such a "top 10 most popular dinosaurs list", though. It may also seem unencyclopedic, but the high profile of these dinosaur genera and species can be ascertained objectively, in principle. Admittedly, I can't think of a good way to incorporate such a list that wouldn't have the experts objecting. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:43, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I suppose a bubble diagram of reptiles down to order level with silhouettes of typical representatives would help, something like this, only with less fish and more detailed amniotes. Do you think this would help, Florian? Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:37, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea! However, in practical implementation, it should also be quite ambitious. Could this possibly remain manageable? I'm not quite sure what exactly you have in mind. I would really like to see an attempt. I think you would need two diagrams, one to show the place of the dinosaurs and the various other -saurs within the amniotes, and one to show the place of several representative genera within the dinosaurs. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

range includes birds

I just wanted to say that I think this is a good addition. de Bivort 02:12, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the range includes birds, sauropods, and guaibasaurids, among many other groups which were not originally considered dinosaurs. Weird how we're constantly discovering new things ;) MMartyniuk (talk) 12:40, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Failure to adapt to changing conditions

Interesting hypothesis, the old classic one. But if birds are dinosaurs, then dinosaurs are today still the most specious group of all tetrapods - a wonder of adaption and variety, the greatest comeback before Lazarus. Failure to adapt new conditions? Ridiculous. --W-j-s (talk) 23:53, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, all but one dinosaur lineage went extinct at the K-P boundary, so in the majority of cases, they failed to adapt, yeah. de Bivort 03:30, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

If you want to call it a "lack of adaptation" that a catastrophic event, which previously had never exerted evolutionary pressure, wiped them out. HMallison (talk) 12:01, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 12 February 2013

Your article says the following: "Although the word dinosaur means "terrible lizard", the name is somewhat misleading, as dinosaurs are not lizards. Rather, they represent a separate group of reptiles with a distinct upright posture not found in lizards, and many extinct forms did not exhibit traditional reptilian characteristics."

If dinosaurs do not exhibit reptilian characteristics, how can you say they are a "separate group of reptiles"? Dinosaurs were not and are not reptiles. The sentence should be changed to: 'a separate group' and the 'of reptiles' should be removed.

Thanks,

Anthony Anthony_Mendoza (talk) 06:38, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Dinosaurs are definitely reptiles. Abyssal (talk) 11:37, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

This of course depends on how you define reptile. If dinosaurs are reptiles, so are birds. Most people don't have a problem with this, some do. On the other hand, the sentence is wrong wither way. If something is a reptilian characteristic, it must be shared with most or all reptiles. If a characteristic is not common to all reptiles, it is therefore not a reptilian characteristic. I'd agree the statement should be removed unless examples of these supposed characteristics (diapsid skulls? scales? hard-shelled eggs?) are given and sourced. The statement seems to oversimplify the difference between lizards and other reptiles to the point that it's useless and misleading as currently listed. MMartyniuk (talk) 12:26, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I think that the operative word here is "traditional". As such scaled, cold-blooded and crawling is probably what the text Anthony quoted is getting at. As for actual sauropsid synapomorphies, if the counterpoint should be needed, this seems to be a good start. Dracontes (talk) 21:03, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Just drop the second of the two sentences, which contributes nothing. No need to get into phylogeny at this point. Saying that dinosaurs are a separate group just repeats the statement in the first sentence that dinosaurs are not lizards. "Traditional reptilian characteristics" is hopelessly vague. Peter Brown (talk) 21:39, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Or we could cite a relatively consensual semi-technical source for what is traditionally reptilian and how dinosaurs differ from that. The new edition of Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia seems a good one from the skim I gave to the intro on the reptile volume. Fair enough regarding such an early introduction of taxonomy and the two phrases could be subsumed into one.

Although the word dinosaur means "terrible lizard", the name is somewhat misleading, as dinosaurs are not lizards, representing instead a separate group of reptiles which, like many extinct forms, did not exhibit characteristics had as traditionally reptilian, such as a sprawling limb posture or ectothermy.

Tangentially I'm not entirely sure what you understand as "upright posture". While many dinosaurs could certainly splay their limbs to some extent especially the basal ones such as Saturnalia and Guaibasaurus their usual locomotory posture was erect (Fechner 2009, pp. 64-69). Dracontes (talk) 09:37, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Or even better:

Although the word dinosaur means "terrible lizard", the name is somewhat misleading, as dinosaurs are not lizards, representing instead a separate group of reptiles which, like many extinct forms, did not exhibit characteristics historically had as reptilian, such as a sprawling limb posture or ectothermy, due to their limited extant diversity.

Dracontes (talk) 09:42, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Zhou 2004

These edits are a bit bewildering. I'd say that if you're going to remove a cite, either remove the pertinent reference completely or find another place where it is pertinent as a cite. As it is Zhou 2004 under the Further Reading heading is the odd man out: a review article among mostly popular and semi-technical books. As for the pertinence of the removal of the cite I'd point out the use of "non-avian dinosaur" in the paper:

Until now, no enantiornithine has been reported from the Cenozoic: thus it is likely that this group of early birds became extinct at the end of the Mesozoic together with non-avian dinosaurs.

The elongated prezygopophyses and chevrons of the caudal vertebrae bear a close resemblance to those of dromaeosaurs, confirming a close link between birds and this lineage of non-avian theropod dinosaurs.

With 10 other mentions to go with those above quoted. Now it is peculiar that "feathered dinosaur" is used as well, though it can be argued that the removal of "non-avian" from the expression is to avoid being repetitive. Besides what else would you call a dinosaur that was found with feathers and doesn't have the skeletal hallmarks of a bird? Feathered dinosaur is the minimum I'd say. Dracontes (talk) 10:37, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Feathers

So we've been finding an ever-increasing number of dinosaurs whose fossils show evidence of feathers or feather-like structures. Is it possible that a feathery body covering could have been even more widespread than we think? Perhaps all non-avian dinosaurs had a feather-like covering of some sort, similarly to how all mammals have some form of hair on their bodies. If this is the case, then perhaps all theropods had a full fuzzy coating of some sort as already seen in many genera, most ornithischians may have had quills like those of of Psittacosaurus and Tianyulong, while the large sauropodomorphs would have been reduced to a sparse covering of bristly "hairs" similar to elephants. I know we have scaly skin impressions of many dinosaurs, but that does not exclude such a possibility of universal feathering in dinosaurs since feathers can grow between scales, as seen in some birds such as owls. Perhaps this article should address the possibility. --24.36.130.109 (talk) 02:58, 19 February 2013 (UTC)