Many people’s first memories of learning about meteorites were probably prefaced by “the one that killed the dinosaurs”. This most famous and yet now non-existent meteorite crashed into our planet in Yucatan Pininsula, in what is now modern-day Mexico. In science textbooks there is an ever so familiar artists impression of dinosaurs gazing in awe at a night sky now filled with the blaze of an incoming massive space rock.

Dinosaurs – witnesses to their own extinction! Credit: Time Scavengers

But what exactly is a dinosaur? Apart from cool ancient monsters of course. Well, the definition of dinosaur is actually quite narrow, and a little more complicated than you might think!

Montage of six dinosaur fossils: (clockwise from top left) Microraptor gui, Apatosaurus louisae, Edmontosaurus regalis, Triceratops horridus, Stegosaurus stenops, Pinacosaurus grangeri.

First of all, dinosaurs are still alive today! Not just reptiles related to dinosaurs, like crocodilians, but actual animals that descended from theropods (that’s big bipedal carnivores like T-rex) and were the only dinosaur lineage to survive the extinction that killed most dinos 65 million years ago. And don’t worry, this isn’t some obscure taxon that you’ve never heard of before, but animals you see every day; they’re our flying feathered friends the birds (yes that does mean birds are technically reptiles…biology gets things wrong sometimes too).

Row 1Sinosauropteryx primaCryolophosaurus elliotiVultur gryphus Row 2Gypaetus barbatusConcavenator corcovatusCarnotaurus sastrei Row 3Deinocheirus mirificus & Tarbosaurus bataarBalaeniceps rexArchaeopteryx lithographica & Compsognathus longipes Row 4Anchiornis huxleyiDakotaraptor steini & OrnithomimusNanuqsaurus hoglundiPasser domesticus Row 5Spinosaurus aegyptiacusBubo scandiacus & Anas rubripes, Unnamed genus kayentakatae

So we have dinosaurs living among us, (and if you look at some birds the dinosaur jumps out at you. Looking at you, ostriches) but what about what we think of as dinosaurs, the big lumbering reptiles? There were way more dinosaur lineages than just theropods, only a tiny fraction of which survived.

So we can sort all dinosaurs into avian dinosaurs (the birds) and non-avian dinosaurs (all the rest; the extinct dinos). In biology (in the modern day, anyway), we classify things based on their relationship to other organisms, so dinosaurs end up being something like: ‘the group consisting of the most recent common ancestor of triceratops (or Megalosaurus, or Iguanodon) and modern birds, and all its descendants’. Not necessarily the easiest definition to grasp. So, we can define dinosaurs a bit more simply by saying they are made up of two groups. These groups are the ornithischians and the saurischians, and both existed from the Triassic Period, through the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and all except the avian dinosaurs became extinct during the K-Pg (Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction).

The Ornithischian dinosaurs (literally meaning the ‘bird-hipped’ dinosaurs because their hip bones looked like the picture here) are made up of a number of smaller groups. Ankylosaurians, Ceratopsians, Stegosaurians, Pachycephalosaurians, and Ornithopods all belong to Ornithischia. Now, those names may sound intimidating, but you would probably recognise some of the dinosaurs in each of those groups from a picture.

Euoplocephalus, a typical Akylosaur with a short, armoured head, and club on its tail.

Our first group of dinosaurs from the Ornithischia are the Ankylosaurs. Ankylosaurids were squat, quadrupedal armoured dinosaurs with short necks and short limbs. They were mostly herbivores, and despite their short stature they were not to be messed with. For starters they were not small, simply low to the ground. They likely weighed between 2 and 3 tonnes, and could almost always take on a T-rex in a fight. Some Ankylosaurids, such as Euoplocephalus, had heavy clubs on the end of their tails to fend off attackers, and their heavily armoured skin could take a few bites. So much so that these tough critters survived quite a long time, from the early Jurassic until the end of the Cretaceous period, when the K-Pg extinction event finally managed to do it in.

Edmontonia rugosidens. This type of Ankylosaur had a longer snout and lacked the club at the end of its tail; instead it had exaggerated shoulder spikes.
Skull of Pachycephalosaurus at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Pachycephalosaurs were pretty interesting guys. They were adapted to do one thing and one thing only; to headbutt. Their name literally means ‘thick headed lizard’, and their heads are definitely thicc. The dome on the top of this dinosaur’s head was made out of thickened bone, with spikes and nodes surrounding it and along the nose.

The dome on their skulls was used as a battering ram in combat, when fighting others of its kind and those who would try to eat it. The pachycephalosaur was a herbivore , which likely ate low lying vegetation during the late Cretaceous of what is now North America and Asia.

Reconstruction of an unnamed pachycephalosaur.

Here we come to a few names we might recognise more readily. Stegosaurians and ceratopsians are two groups that were alive during the cretaceous period and were both herbivores with some unique features. Early ceratopsians were bipedal, such as the Psittacosaurus.

Psittacosaurus mongoliensis

 Psittacosaurus is one of the dinosaurs we know most about, appearance wise – we have data which even allows us to predict its colouration! And although it has the usual ceratopsian beak and some unusual wide cheekbones, it is not what you first imagine when you hear ‘ceratops’.

Triceratops horridus

But Triceratops probably is! It is the best known ceratopsian, and was distinctive due to the three horns on its head, made of bone and covered with keratin – the same thing that makes up deer antlers and your hair and nails. It also had the characteristic bony frill of most ceratopsians, and the function of these decorations on its head is still unknown, but we can say that it is more likely to have been a display adaptation similar to the peacock’s tail, rather than one used for fighting.

Now, moving from dinosaurs that had huge skulls for their body, we come to the opposite. Stegosaurus was another quadrupedal armoured dinosaur (related to the ankylosaurs) which had a beak, but this group had large plates situated vertically along their necks, backs and tails, and had a tiny head! They also had large spikes right at the end of their tail called the thagomizer, which they could use as a weapon.

Stegosaurus stenops

Finally for the Ornithischia, we have the ornithopods (meaning bird feet), yet more herbivores which started out in the Triassic period as bipedal runners, and grew in size until the K-Pg to become either facultative quadrupeds or facultative bipeds – where they could choose to walk on two legs or four depending on the situation. This group included the duck-bill dinosaurs or hadrosaurs, which includes Parasaurolphus, below. The main adaptation of these animals to their environment, and what allowed them to survive and dominate for so long was a novel chewing mechanism, the most efficient amongst non-avian dinosaurs.

Parasaurolphus walkeri – we have skin impressions for this dinosaur as well.

 This allowed them to break up their food before swallowing it and made their digestion much more efficient, allowing them to become bigger over time.

This is what Saurischian hips looked like.

You may have noticed however, that neither the bird-hipped dinosaurs, nor the bird feet dinosaurs include the theropods. This means that, ironically, birds did not evolve from the Ornithischians, but from the Saurischians, the ‘lizard-hipped’ dinosaurs – which is just confusing, really.

But the Saurischians were a simpler group than Ornithischians. The members of this group followed one of two major body plans.

First of all we have the Sauropodomorphs. As seems to be the way with dinosaurs, the prosauropods started off as bipedal animals during the mid-Triassic and the Sauropods had evolved to become quadrupedal by the late Cretaceous. They were the dominant herbivores on land, and only the ornithopods rivalled them by the end of the Cretaceous (again due to their advanced chewing method – sauropodomorphs simply had gizzard stones in their stomach to grind up what they’d eaten, as some modern birds – again, ostriches – do).  But, you’ll recognise many of the names of sauropods and certainly know what they look like. Brachiosaurus, Brontosaurus, Diplodocus and Apatosaurus were Sauropods, which includes the largest animals to have ever lived on land (there is debate over which sauropod takes the title – some aren’t complete fossils and as such are just estimations). These giants had long necks and tails and stood on four columnar legs (a bit like an elephant’s). They also had hollow bones, an adaptation that reduces their weight to allow them to live on land.

And last but certainly not least, we come to the only other Saurischian group, the one, the only, the theropod. And this is probably the most well-known group of dinosaurs, containing both the Tyrannosaurus rex, and the Velociraptor, and of course, modern birds. This group is characterised by hollow bones and three toed limbs. They are mostly carnivorous, although some groups converted back to being vegetarian, such as the Therizinosaurs. This meant that these were the only large land carnivores at the time when most were alive, from the late Triassic to the late Cretaceous (birds appeared in the Jurassic and are the only dinosaurs to have survived the K-Pg). A lot of these dinosaurs show fossil evidence of feathers and protofeathers, as well as evidence of carnivory – lizards found in stomachs, etc. And as you probably know, these dinosaurs were bipedal, fast runners with small forearms.

Compsognathids are a group of small theropods, this is Sinosauropteryx
Maniraptoriformes was another group of small feathered hunters to which Velociraptor belonged. This is a cousin, Utahraptor.
Tyrannosaurids were a group of large carnivores with feather like coverings on some of their body, as shown here by Tyrannosaurus rex.

So, this has been a whirlwind tour through the clade Dinosauria, and you may have spotted that some of your favourites are missing. Completely aquatic reptiles such as ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs and pliosaurs, as well as flying reptiles or pterosaurs, such as Pteranodon and Pterodactyl, while they were alive at the time of the dinosaurs, do not belong to the dinosauria. Dinosaurs were exclusively terrestrial animals, living at least most of their lives on land (although there are theropods such as Spinosaurus that hunted in shallow water and could probably swim well).


5 Comments

Freddie · November 10, 2022 at 07:11

Hello,
May I inquire about the dinosaur soft tissue finds of which there are many. How does this highly biodegradable assortment of matter survive for at least 65 million years?
May I also ask, when and how did dinosaurs acquire feathers and are there examples of ‘in-between’ stages?
Many Thanks,
Freddie

    Heather Alexander · November 28, 2022 at 16:50

    Hi Freddie, I will pass this question on to Anna, the author of this article and get back to you as soon as possible – Heather

    Anna Taylor · December 1, 2022 at 10:42

    Hi

    Soft tissue can fossilize in the same way as bone and hard tissue, it’s just much rarer. The reason for this is that soft tissue often degrades (or is eaten) quickly after the death of the organism. This means it is rarer for soft tissue to hang around for long enough to be fossilized, whereas bone, teeth, lignin and shell are much more common in fossils. If the soft tissue was quickly covered by sediment e.g in a landslide or simply got buried quickly then it has the chance to fossilize, which preserves it for millions of years.
    There are definitely intermediate forms of feathers, ranging from hairs or monofilaments to specialised multifilament feather. Not only did some dinosaurs (theropods such as t-rex and velociraptor) have feathers, we have found very well preserved and developed feathers in another (non-dinosaur) lineage, the pterosaurs. This means that it is likely that feathers evolved properly in the ancestors to dinosaurs and pterosaurs in the early Triassic. Feathers did not originally evolve for flight (they predate that significantly) but as insulation and facilitated the shift to high metabolism and ectothermy that came along with the dinosaurs.

    Hope this answers your questions!
    Anna

      Freddie · January 11, 2023 at 20:11

      Hello Anna,
      Thanks very much for your interesting reply.
      I wondered how soft tissue can survive for 65 million years ………. at least. You didn’t really explain what the process is to enable soft tissue to ‘hang around’. It may elude predators etc above ground but underneath the soil are microbes e.g. fungi, bacteria, archaea, protozoa, or viruses. Additionally insects, worms and animals that dig underground. Plenty of things to devour soft tissue wherever it is.
      Hopefully the following will be of interest. Its from Creation Worldview. SOFT TISSUE (INCLUDING FLESH) FOUND IN FOSSILS. Articles SOFT TISSUE (INCLUDING FLESH) FOUND IN FOSSILS. Grady McMurtry  April 04, 2020  3722  0  0
      One of the most interesting recent finds of soft tissue inside of fossil bone was made by Mark Armitage on May 12, 2012. Soft fibrillar bone tissue was discovered inside the fossil brow horn of a Triceratops horridus. The fossil horn was found in the famous Hell Creek Formation near Glendive, Montana. This is a world famous area for finding fossil dinosaur remains.
      The soft material was present in pre- and post-decalcified bone. (Mori, H., et al., A new Arctic hadrosaurid from the Prince Creek Formation (lower Maastrichtian) of northern Alaska, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 2015. The horn contained several small sheets of lamellar bone matrix that had become part of the solid bone horn. Observed within the matrix were visible bone cells (osteocytes). There were even multiple layers of intact bone cells including elegant filipodial interconnections and obvious secondary branching. Two specific kinds of bone cells were discovered. There was no sign of permineralization in the tissues.
      Last, but hardly least and equally important, we have found radioactive Carbon 14 inside dinosaur and dinosaur era fossils. This should be impossible as Carbon 14 residues supposedly cannot be measured beyond 103,000 years old. In addition, for Carbon 14 to be found in fossils requires that organic, soft tissues, be present in the specimen.
      In 2011, a fossil fish from the Green River Formation in Wyoming, and claimed to be 49 to 50 million years old, was radiocarbon dated as 26,110 years old. At the same time, a fossil paddle fish was removed from the same Formation, and yet it was radiocarbon dated as 33,530 years old.
      Mummified wood found on Axel Heiberg Island in 1986, and claimed to be Eocene (34 to 56 million years old) was radiocarbon dated as 39,720 old.
      Three hadrosaur fossil bones from the Hell Creek Formation and neighboring Lance Formation, supposedly 66 to 100 million years old have been radiocarbon dated as 20,850, 25,550 and 32,420 years old. The Triceratops horn bone mentioned previously was also radiocarbon dated with a result of 33,570 years old. Finally, a fossil lizard was found in Permian strata (252 to 298 million supposed years old) but radiocarbon dated as 49,470 years old.
      So Anna, how does dinosaur soft tissue ‘hang around’ and furthermore register a radiocarbon date?
      There is also a problem with dinosaur feathers or rather the lack thereof. You will be familiar with the name Alan Feduccia.
      From the Institute for Creation Research – Evolutionary Dinosaur Myths Debunked
      WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2022
      by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D., and Tim Clarey, Ph.D.*
      The main problem with the dinosaur feather idea is that it has no strong support from research in the field. Alan Feduccia, an evolutionary bird paleontologist, has published several papers and books that show dinosaurs didn’t have dino fuzz—or even feathers, for that matter.23,24 He showed in a 2005 study that so-called dino fuzz was merely the fossil remains of thin collagen fibers left over from partially decomposed skin.23 The research included analysis of decomposing collagen skin fibers in reptiles, sharks, and dolphins, and comparisons of these fibers with those of several dinosaurs.
      Also, dinosaur anatomy and morphology compare favorably with that of living reptiles, showing they were most likely cold-blooded. And the lack of evidence for feathers, combined with reptile-shaped brains, demolishes the claims of bird evolution. This negation of dinosaur-bird evolution is further bolstered by the fact that birds appear in the rock record before raptor-like dinosaurs, the supposed precursors to birds.
      23. Feduccia, A., T. Lingham-Soliar, and J. R. Hinchliffe. 2005. Do Feathered Dinosaurs Exist? Testing the Hypothesis on Neontological and Paleontological Evidence. Journal of Morphology.  266 (2): 125-166.
      24. Feduccia, A. 2020. Romancing the Birds and Dinosaurs: Forays in Postmodern Paleontology. Irvine, CA: Brown Walker Press.
      So Anna, what was the process and mechanism that enabled feathers to evolve, particularly as you claim, they were not originally for flight?
      I would appreciate your comments on the issues raised.
      Kind Regards,
      Freddie

        Heather Alexander · January 13, 2023 at 16:04

        Hi Freddie, thank you for the comment, Anna will get back to you as soon as she can. Just remember when you’re sending in comments to try and keep them on the shorter side. Long comments like this, whether approved or not, can sometimes get picked up by the spam filter. Thanks! – Heather

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