Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world hydroptic @sopuli.xyz 8mo ago

What is your favorite dinosaur?

After a certain age people stop asking you what your favorite dinosaur is, and I think that's sad.

My current one's the Anchiornis, because it's in the same clade as birds so it's in their family tree, and it really looks like a prototype of a bird. It had 4 wings for example, but it already looked very birb-y:

(Figured I'd just turn an earlier comment into an actual post because why not)

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128 comments

Ankylosaurus! Tail club, armor plates, what's not to love?
- Ah yes, when nature went "what if tank?":
  
  My daughter is obsessed with dinosaurs right now and this is my go-to favorite, too. Hers was Parasaurolophus but now is back to T-Rex lol.
  
  HAHA YES!
  
  Me as a kid, as I also loved turtles. This was the time when dinosaurs saw turtles and said 'hold my beer.'
  
  He's a handsome lad.
- Fun fact: the nubs on the tail club are called osteoderms and the tail spikes on a stegosaurus is called a thagomizer.
- Yep, my favorite as well.
  
  It just doesn't get any cooler than a literal living tank.
- !ankmemes@sh.itjust.works could use more content from fellow Ankthusiasts!
- Same. I think it's because of the movie "Dinosaur". I love Url
I'm boring, and still like Stegosaurus best. Gotta love that Thagomizer.
- I’m boring
  
  We'll have none of that here! Nothing wrong with liking an old classic, because I mean come on:
- Solid choice.
  
  There was a point in fifth grade when I was into plesioasurs after reading books about the Loch Ness Monster and Mokele Mbembe.
- Poor Thag Simmons...
- That Stegosaurus vs T-Rex scene in Disney's Fantasia is probably the reason why this is my favorite.
- thebestdinosaur.com Irrefutable logic
I just have a soft spot for triceratops.
- Same. Because triceratops have none.
  It's like a rhino with even more armor and horns, what's not to like?
- Movie depictions of Triceratops rub me the wrong way. Never liked Sarah in Land Before Time and my daughter loves Ice Age Buck Wild and the triceratops is the bad guy in that, too. They do triceratops dirty.
  
  Actually guy in buck wild may be a monoclonius 🤔
- My favorite cartoon as a kid had a triceratops at a hero. I don’t remember much about it and can’t find it listed online but it might have been from 1970s and I really just remember the triceratops charging at the bad guys, shooting lasers out of his horns
  
  Herculoids?
  
  Bionatops from He Man?
  
  Dino Riders?
  
  A triceraton from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
  
  Dinosaucers?
  
  Beyond that, not sure what futuristic triceratops there was.
- I used to think liking triceratops is dumb when there's likes of centrosaurus and styracosaurus, but over the years I've come to appreciate the classic design.
  
  Design. Right.
- Completely understandable! They're a classic
Spinosaurus!

Gigantic crocodile-faced sail-finned bitey boy supreme.
- same
  
  same 2
Patagotitan mayorum. I think that it's the largest that we know about - around 40m large. Herbivore, I can't help but think on it as a dino-giraffe: eating leaves, nesting its eggs, not giving too much of a fuck about the small critters nearby.
I love this question! This made me really happy. My favorite has always been (and remains) the brontosaurus. (Probably can blame "The Land Before Time" for its influence.)

I remember in the early/mid-90s being corrected that brontosaurus wasn't a dinosaur species, but was actually the same as apatosaurus. Being a stubborn child, I refused to accept this and always considered the brontosaurus, not the apatosaurus, my favorite. I felt so vindicated when the study came out in 2015 that brontosaurus and apatosaurus weren't the same.

Perhaps that's why I still stubbornly refuse to let go of Pluto: the minute hope that my favorite planet will be recognized again someday. Alas.
- Thunder lizard! Brontosaur's another classic, ginormous boyes
- I had a plastic brontosaurus toy as a kid that I loved. It had a weird chemical smell to it. 30+ years later, when I hear "brontosaurus" I instantly and vividly swear I can smell it
- I also have brontosaurus as my favorite (probably also because of The Land Before Time).
  
  Glad you're still holding out hope for Pluto too!
Parasaurolophus has been my favorite since I was 6 years old. I've always thought their cranial crests were very cool.
- If the Ankylosaurus was nature going "what if tank?" then the Parasaurolophus was nature going "what if dinosaur but cow?"
Chicken.
- Duck beats chicken in every way except tastiness
  
  What are you talking about? Ducks are like richer chickens.
  
  A well prepared duck is much tastier than chicken. Chicken is just much easier to cook.
  
  It also wins on tastiness! I'm my book anyway. Crispy fried duck. Peking duck. It's basically all brown meat. Delicious.
  
  How is tastiness the thing ducks wouldn't be better at??
I know they're not dinosaurs, but I like pterosaurs a lot. Their wings look cool and I bet a flock of them in the sky would be a crazy sight!
- The larger ones would have been absolutely fucking terrifying:
At the risk of sounding like a basic removed, I'm going to go with T-Rex. Sure he has ridiculously silly arms, but he gets a pass because he could bite through a car. It's a prime case of be careful who you pick on in school.
- T.rex is the goat and I'm convinced more people haven't said it only because it's too 'obvious'
  
  T Rex eats the goat.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so probably one that isn't considered a dinosaur anymore.
Pachycephalasaurus has always been on of my favorites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachycephalosaurus
- Head butting problems to make them go away since 85.8 Mya
Chicken.

I just killed my back for the day making a barbeque bath for their little fingers...

Wicked Barbie Srirachasaur
- Chickims qualify!
  
  … I wonder what other dinosaurs tasted like?
  
  Probably like chicken.
gotta go with the velociraptor, Little knife chicken
Archaeopteryx - apparently the first bird ever
- One of the first we know of at least! And they looked much more bird-y than my fave Anchiornis:
  
  One of the first we know of at least!
  
  Nah, it's the first one because that's exactly where we decided to draw the line. Birds have to start somewhere, so why not with archaeopteryx? So it will never change no matter what other species we find.
Allosaurus
- Team allosaurus too! I recently got to see this one:
  
  https://www.marqueyssac.com/a-dinosaur-in-the-garden/?lang=en
  
  That looks awesome. I recently took my sons to the Melbourne Museum. They have a new Tyrannosaur as well as a triceratops.
  
  https://museumsvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/resources/dinosaur-walk/
Euoplocephalus, because I like me some ank memes, but I wanna be special.

If we included pterosaurs, then anurognathus, because look at him!
It's always been Allosaurus
- Team allosaurus too! I recently got to see this one:
  
  https://www.marqueyssac.com/a-dinosaur-in-the-garden/?lang=en
Therizinosaurus! When I saw the previews for the new Jurassic World movie and they teased it, I got chills. I was so stoked.
Mine is the Pachycephalosaurus. I love it so much I use it as my profile picture. I got attached to it because cranidos is my favorite pokemon.
If we are accepting non-dinosaur but ancient creatures, my favorite is the anomalocaris :) it's just a goofy lil guy with a mouth snoot. Plus, they never say no to a snack. (They're at the end.)
tricerytops
This post made me think of Napoleon Dynamite for some reason. And I loved that movie.

I've always been partial to the Spinosaurus. Ain't no cowboy gonna ride ol' spiney.
- Ain’t no cowboy gonna ride ol’ spiney.
  
  "Semiaquatic dinosaur rodeo" is an underappreciated theme. Maybe we'll see it in the next Jurassic Park.
  
  Should be a band's name
- Ain’t no cowboy gonna ride ol’ spiney.
  
  Ark players: Hold my beer.
Oviraptorosaurs!

They're basically giant turkeys!
- And their name means "egg thief"!
  
  And turns out it's slander!
  
  Oviraptor was originally found together with a big nest of ceratopsian eggs, so it was assumed they fed by stealing those. Years later it was discovered the eggs actually belonged to the oviraptor who was protecting them till death.
Styracosaurus. No idea why other than they just look cool as fuck!
Stenonychosaurus (née Troodon) because as unlikely and silly an idea as it was I always found the whole "how intelligent could they have become if they hadn't gone extinct" thought experiment fascinating.

I also have a soft spot for Struthiomimus just because it's such a fun word to say.
- Oh you mean the weird "dinosauroid" thing?
Just want to give props to OP for playing the role of host/MC very well.
- Aww, thank you
Iguanodon.

Where it all started.
- A big thumbs up to that
Microraptor. I have a soft spot for the small dinos
- It had amazing feathers. That's a really good pick
Permanently Deleted
- And a cool mane too
Cryolophosaurus They have a hat and that's pretty cool.
- Didn't even know about that one.
  
  Diet: carnivorous
  […]
  Food: other animals
  
  Yes that's usually where meat comes from.
Kiwis! They look so unusual and almost mammal like, and on top of this they're absolutely adorable little birbs!
- Ha, great answer! Kiwis are definitely strange birbs, they sort of feel more ancient than your regular average tiny dinosaurs
I like budgies <3 💚💚💚💛💜
I still can’t believe the fact that they used to exist
- Right? And what's really wild is that birds are literally dinosaurs. Not just descended from dinosaurs, but classified as feathered theropods and the only known living dinosaurs
  
  But haven't they extincted by the astroid?
Oof tough question. I've always had a soft spot for Parasaurolophus and deinonychosaurians.

If I have to pick a favorite among the heavy carnivores though, I'll be torn between Carnotaurus and Giganotosaurus.
- Ahh the Giganotosaurus, giving good 'ol t-rex a run for their money when it comes to size.
My daughter has an awesome dinosaur book that includes several I had never heard of, like the Nigersaurus which had hundreds of teeth. Crazy stuff!
- This has to be one of the most hilarious recreations I've seen:
  
  The real skulls are sick, too
Earl Sinclair.
Parasaurolophus. I just think they're kinda neat and kinda cute.

Aside from that, pretty much any raptor. (I am not a paleontologist, I mostly just mean anything with feathers)
- Oh yeah somebody else had Parasaurolophus as their fave too earlier, and they (well, the reconstructions anyhow) really do look super cute. Dinocows!
- They've recently discovered that their large nasal cavities could have been used to make a tuba like noise
Titanosaurus. The one from the Showa era, not the one from the Cretaceous.
Trex!

You should play Arc Survival Evolved it's an amazing game for dinosaur nerds 🤓
Argentinosaurus. Biggest Tree Star eater ever. I think it would be the coolest thing ever to like, mount a dwelling on its back, live on and take care of it.
Probably the dinosaurus
Deeduthnkesauros
Joe Biden!
That's not a dinosaur though.
- Crazily enough Anchiornis are dinosaurs, specifically paravian or possibly avialan depending on whose classification you believe, but dinos in any case
  
  Why pterodactyls aren't consider dinosaurs then?
Your mom
Joe Bidenasaurus
The Idon'tgiveafucksaurus. Just does what it wants with no worries.

128 comments