The popular educational kids show “Barney and Friends” is based on dinosaurs. That was the favorite kids show on PBS — if you were a 90s kid. Here at The Factionary, its no secret that we’re a huge fan of dinosaurs; and there is indeed a lot to learn about them, nearly 200 years since the first dinosaur fossil was dug up. In fact, there are a lot of misconceptions about dinosaurs that seems so unfair. Here are the most popular dinosaur myths, debunked.
Related media: What If Dinosaurs Never Went Extinct?
#1. They Are Extinct
Its obvious to think that dinosaurs are no more, despite the devastating meteorite that struck the Yucatán Peninsula roughly 65 million years ago. Spoiler: Dinosaurs were not entirely wiped out from the surface of the Earth. The ones that survived were left in the sky (with a few on ground, though). The big difference nowadays is that, dinosaurs are everywhere — on our coins, clothes, buildings, and even watch hilarious videos. That’s right: every living bird is actually a dinosaur.
#2. They Were All Cold-Blooded
The common depiction of dinosaurs are these huge, lumbering, cold-blooded beasts. Truth is, its way more complicated. We now have evidence from microscopic examinations of their fossilized bones that their metabolic activities were simply too sophisticated to have solely depended on the Sun for heat. How their bodies generated heat still remains a bit of a mystery to paleontologists. However, there are lots of different ways to be a warm-blooded creature.
#3. They Had Scales
Indeed, some dinosaurs did have scales, and there is ample evidence that support that; we’ve found fossils of their skin preserved across the eons. But others had feathers (check #1 on the list). That’s true, even long before we had a clear distinction between birds and dinosaurs. Here’s the catch: the movies “Jurassic Park” and “Jurassic World” are too much Sci-Fi — there was no such thing as a velociraptor with scaly green skin. Dinosaurs were widely diverse.
#4. They Were Green Or Brown
Some dinosaurs might have been green or brown. Believe it or not, we really don’t know for certain the true colors of most dinosaurs, and those we do know weren’t … either. Dinosaurs were of all colors — red, black, white, you name your favorite colors — and they weren’t just one color all over, either. For a species to have evolved for millions of years, its possible that they might have been diverse in so many ways; we can even imagine some dinosaur having strips.
#5. They All Existed Around The Same Time
Let’s think about the two most famed dinosaurs of all time: Tyrannosaurus rex and Stegosaurus. One of these beasts was a giant carnivore, and the other, a giant herbivore with a lot of spikes all over it. Could both of them thrive at the same point in time? Short answer: Not at all! if Tyrannosauruses had built natural history museums, they could have installed Stegosaurus fossils as the main exhibit. Dinosaurs did grace the planet for a really long ass time — and as a matter of fact, they’re still around today.
#6. They Are Evolutionary Failures
People make fun of someone who just isn’t up-to-date with the growing pace of the 21st century as a dinosaur. At worse, this is use to ridicule someone who seems slow, incompetent, or really bad at their job. And that’s really not fair. Aforementioned, the dinosaurs roam a lush planet for a ridiculously long ass time — roughly 186 million years. By contrast, the oldest discovery of Homo sapien fossil is dated to be roughly 300,000 years. We still have another 185.7 million years to go before we can start making fun of dinosaurs.
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Written by: Nana Kwadwo, Sun, Jun 16, 2019.
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