Dinosaurs will always be some of the coolest, most fascinating things for people to think about. Humans’ universal fascination with the ancient beasts most likely comes from the fact that we’ll (sadly) never see them in the wild.
Redditor u/nfk040 started a conversation about cool dinosaur facts and we so are here for it.
They asked the people of Reddit:
“What’s a cool fact about dinosaurs you know?”
And a big ol’ thread about dinosaurs is something we can all appreciate.
Here are the 25 coolest facts about dinosaurs according to the people of Reddit.
1.
“Scientists have studied the nasal and throat structure of the tyrannosaurus rex and as it turns out it was completely incapable of vocalizing a roar like those seen in movies, rather they would have made deep growling noises similar to alligators.” –
2.
“Raptors couldn’t walk around with its hands hanging palm down like most toys and movies show, their bone structure wouldn’t allow it. They had to keep their palms facing each other.” –tkdyo
3.
“Recently Spinosaurus was discovered to have a tadpole-like tail. It has been known for a while that it was mostly an aquatic animal, even Jurassic Park III showed that, but it was always depicted with the standard lizard-like dinosaur tail. Recently new fossils have emerged that show that the creature had a tail like that of a tadpole, suggesting that it spend much more time in water than previously thought.” –Toby_Creates
4.
“Cartoonist Gary Larson named a dinosaur part. In one of his strips, a caveman scientist described the spikes on a stegosaurus tail as “the thagomizer, named after the late Thag Simmons”. Real life paleontologists realized this part had no name… so they started calling it the thagomizer.” –ekolis
5.
“They were around for longer than they’ve been extinct. Which means that there were dinosaur fossils when dinosaurs existed.” –Clintman
6.
“There was a study done a few years ago where scientists grew chicken embryos that had dinosaur faces — a rounded snout and teeth instead of a beak. They did this by altering gene expression in the developing embryos, so the snouts came out looking more like an alligator’s than a traditional bird’s. Also, birds actually existed at the same time as non-avian dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx was a Jurassic dinosaur, so the evolution of birds began long before velociraptors and T. Rex were walking the earth.” –Linzerj
7.
“The Amish don’t believe in dinosaurs.” –damselinda
8.
“T. Rex was actually really tough. Some skeletons have been found with major injuries that show evidence of years worth of healing. A skeleton named Stan in particular had a hole in his skull, and he may have lived up to a decade after having his skull punctured if the bone healing is any indication.” –CrazyLogical1
9.
“The word “Dinosaur” means “terrible lizard”. Since the coining of the name it has been determined that they are not lizards. The name still fits though, because they make for terrible lizards.” –AlColbert
10.
“There is a fossil called the “Fighting Dinosaurs” that shows a Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in combat. The Velociraptor has its killing claw thrust in the neck of the Protoceratops, and the Protoceratops has the hand of the Velociraptor clutched in its mouth. It’s thought that they died suddenly while in combat due to getting buried in a landslide of sand, caused by a rare torrential downpour. Real-life Velociraptors may be small, but they’re still metal as hell.” –thefloweyfanclub