Dinosaurs: why they keep changing
The visual image of a dinosaur has changed significantly since the first fossil remains were discovered. Much of the information needed to draw up a dinosaur blueprint has been lost to time, and let’s face it, no one has ever seen a dinosaur, including our own distant relatives who appeared long after dinosaurs became extinct. .
Why do dinosaurs keep changing shape and why is their outward appearance different today than it was years ago? These are questions that are asked often, however, it is not necessarily as direct an answer as you may suppose.
First of all, many discovered fossil remains are not complete dinosaurs, and in most cases, hardly anything is found, just enough to understand that they are from an unknown dinosaur, or to put it another way, it is a new find of dinosaur. When someone maps out what the new dinosaur should look like, based on similar bones from other dinosaurs and other clever guesses, they find another piece of the puzzle that can radically change everything, recreating the shape of the dinosaurs.
When dinosaurs were first discovered, it was difficult to reconstruct them. The first ankylosaurus was rebuilt by Barnum Brown, who thought it was a stegosaurus. Understandably, this was an easy case of mistaken identity, specifically due to time and lack of understanding, meaning that his reconstruction looked nothing like a Stegosaurus or the Ankylosaurus that it was.
The Ankylosaurus case highlights that not only is it difficult to reconstruct a dinosaur, even when you basically have all the fossil remains, but there are so many different dinosaurs that it is difficult to identify your finds.
Another problem is the way we interpret the movement of a dinosaur. T-rex was once thought to be a heavy giant that would die if it fell because its arms were too short to straighten up. Now experts have completed more analysis and found more wreckage, suggesting that they were, in fact, fast and agile, capable of moving up to 40 kilometers per hour (in short bursts), and could easily get up from a fall. This also shows how our own scientific knowledge has grown and provided more answers than were understood in the past.
Shape and color have had many influencing factors when deciding what a dinosaur should look like. For example, colors have been based on location, temperatures, ego systems, gender, size, and more, while crests and sails have been influenced by scientific beliefs such as body regulation, aspects Practices of movement, gender and the environment.
No one can deny that movies, toys, and books influence our own imaginations. In the case of dinosaurs, it could be ‘One Million Years BC’ or Jurassic Park, either way, both depictions of dinosaurs are out of date. Since the 1980s many fossil remains have been discovered. Australia has released a vast trove of dinosaur fossils which in turn has helped fund more and more excavations and research. The idea that a T-rex had feathers did not really exist when Jurassic Park was released, however in the world of paleontology it is becoming widely accepted. Jurassic World, the last in the series will stick to its own historical formula, which means that we won’t see a feathered T-rex, which will prevent many people from accepting that T-Rex had feathers.
These are just a few of the reasons that dinosaurs look different today than they did years ago and it must be said that there are many other factors that stir the pot. The fact is that we have never seen a dinosaur and never will, while our scientific knowledge enhances our thoughts, beliefs, and individual description will always mean that there will be subtle and substantial changes in the way we view dinosaurs.