General Discussion

[center]This is one of the coolest, most interesting animals to have ever been. Look at it. This guy leapt eight feet almost straight up to start flying and had bones no thicker than a playing card in some places. What the hell. I LOVE this thing and was moved to TEARS seeing it in a museum for the first time. Quetzalcoatlus my most beloved [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/568302404588666880/1079184851929931916/latest.png[/img][/center]

I love the genus Therizinosauridae way too much, especially Enigmosaurus, just look at this fluffy boy :) [img]https://i.imgur.com/d3OGTO0.jpg[/img] for non dinosaur prehistoric creatures that I like have to be moschops, Deinosuchus, Quetzalcoatlus, and Entelodonts

OK SO I'm not done. Now I can talk about how much I love azhdarchids (as I see people have brought up before). They have to have one of the single most bizarre tetrapod bodyplans I have ever seen. They are [i]terrifying[/i]. I think more media featuring the Mesozoic should recognize that. They have stick thin limbs and huge, disproportionate heads, tiny little eyes. They walk like giraffes, and yet, fly. With the sizes some could reach, these were real life dragons. If they were still alive I would cry myself to sleep every night. [img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/48/5b/5c485bef96353d7640cf9a362c96ffae.jpg[/img] Down to genus (technically species) level, one of my favourite prehistoric creatures of all time is Aegirocassis, an enormous filter-feeding arthropod, the whale of its time...enormous, for its time. Potentially exceeding 6 feet long, this animal was a titan back in its day. It's funny what can become the "big filter feeding creature" if the niche is unoccupied. [img]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327645945/figure/fig5/AS:958878741192704@1605625915052/Diversity-of-sizes-and-feeding-habits-in-radiodonts-As-exemplified-by-Aegirocassis-and.png[/img]

Anchiornis, my tiny son [emoji=familiar heart size=1] [img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Anchiornis_martyniuk.png/1920px-Anchiornis_martyniuk.png[/img] Just a little man in Adidas trackpants. It's one of the few non-avian dinosaurs we actually know the feather coloration of - some pigment traces were preserved in fossil specimens. They would have been about the size of a small crow. Incidentally, my current D&D character has a pet one who rides around on her shoulder - I convinced our DM that since we were in Chult (fantasy!Dinotopia), I should be allowed to buy one with my share of the treasure while we were in the big city. He's named Milo Jr., after the party's cleric who died tragically while we were fighting animate statues.

i have too many favorite dinosaurs lol

utahraptor, purely because they found the first one in utah and decided thats what they'd call it (imagine finding the fossil of a new dinosaur in a walmart and naming it walmartosaurus or something)

attenboroughsaurus, because david attenborough has been my favorite nature documentary narrator since i was a kid and im happy he has a dinosaur named after him

quetzalcoatlus because B I G B O Y

and therizunosaurus because i just think its funny that this massive seven-foot-tall monster with three claws over a foot long on each of its hands ends up just eating plants.


edit: if you want cool dinosaur information, id recommend the documentary series Prehistoric Planet on appke tv! its narrated by david attenborough (yay!) and all the dinos are cgi obviously which means that if a baby gets separated from its parents its not "sadly, the baby will not survive." *cut to something else* because the artists can choose what happens so NO SAD BABY DEATHS :D

The sinomacrops is so CUTE. It looks like a feathery bird bulldog gremlin and I love it. [img]https://i.imgur.com/bs5eBZX.png[/img] It was also only 15 cm long with a wingspan of 33 cm. Sooo small, I want to hold it like hamburger.

Apparently there is a dinosaur called Heterodontosaurus and it's name makes me laugh
It is so ugly and I love it

I'm a huge fan of gorgonopsids. Like, [i]really[/i] huge. They're one of my favorite prehistoric animals and it's a shame they always seem to get sidelined in favor of dinosaurs because they died off before they existed. I like Inostrancevia a lot, it's one of the biggest ones :) [img]http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/images/species/i/inostrancevia-size.jpg[/img]