Stock Dinosaurs: Non-Dinosaurs: Difference between revisions

''Pteranodon''’s nifty crest on its skull, along with the fact to have holded the size-record for almost a century, has made it THE pterosaur in popular imagination. Its iconic status among pterosaurs coud be partially justified. It’s not only one of the first discovered pterosaurs, but perhaps also the most common in fossil record. Hundreds of specimens are known, while most other pterosaur kinds are much, much rarer, often known from a single individual. The vast majority of Pteranodons belong to the species all people know, ''Pteranodon longiceps''.

 

 

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== Swimming Reptiles ==

 

 

== Sea-reptiles in media ==

Most synapsids lived well before the apparition of the first dinosaur; indeed, synapsids were the very first large land vertebrates and diversified much during their permanence on Earth, until most of them got wiped out in the Permian mass extinction. In the Brave New World that followed, the few surviving non-mammalian species were outcompeted by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archosaur archosaurs], the group containing dinosaurs, pterosaurs and crocodilians.

 

 

''[[Taxonomic Term Confusion|Technically]]'' they are not even "reptiles".

Its “sail” substained by elongated vertebral spines has always been an headache for scientists. The classic theory consider it a thermoregulating device. Put against the solar rays it could have captures much heat like a solar panel; if put parallel to them, it was more like a radiator, dispersing heat. Considering its desertic habitat, this hyp still remains a good one. Other theories are mating or threat display, inter-specific identification, and so on. Maybe the sail served for all these purposes. Among external features, ''Dimetrodon'' could also have had some sparse hair, hints of auricles and maybe even proto-milk glands. These things are totally unsure, and given its primitiveness, are unlikely. The coloration is totally speculative--living in harsh habitat, it should be brownish like modern desert mammals, but its sail could have been vividly coloured and/or able to change colors for display purpose. Sadly, synapsid soft tissues are virtually unknown. No eggs or nests are known from the dimetrodont, and we don’t know if it was oviparous, or viviparous like modern mammals (if the latter is true, viviparity was achieved independently).

 

 

Although ''Dimetrodon'' is more closely related to ''you'' than to any dinosaur, and predated the first dinosaur by at least a country mile of geologic time, it is often mixed with dinosaurs in toy collections just because it [[Rule of Cool|looks cool]]. In movies and comics, it may even show up living with Cavemen. Expect to see it with a giant iguana-like look and ''scaly'' skin. Actually, scales are a strict reptilian thing, and ''Dimetrodon'' hide was probably naked like modern hairless mammals, with some [[Science Marches On|hardened fish-like belly scales left over from its amphibian ancestry]]. Its shape makes the dimetro the most abused animal within the [[Slurpasaur]] trope. For example, in the 1970 film version of ''[[A Journey to The Center of The Earth]]'' some Caribbean iguanas with a ridicolous crest attacked on their backs live-act ''Dimetrodon''s , which of course attack the humans.