|Forum|Articles|Dinosaurious. By Cyber Seduction     Dinosaurious October 24 2001 at 10:33 AM Cyber Seduction (no login) Brontosaurus Huge beast. Ate only plants, but could crush a '93 Cabriolet with a single step of its titanic brontosaurus feet. Name means "Thunder Lizard" which is about as cool as you can get. Its only real drawback is that it didn't really exist. B+ Apatosaurus This is what they're calling brontosauruses these days. Apparently they had some problem with the wrong skull on the wrong body--duh--and once they figured it out they had to change the name to "apatosaurus," which means "Deceptive Lizard." Personally I think they should have looked up the Latin for "Stupid Scientist." D Dimetrodon Looks like a gecko with a mohawk. Big sail on its back that they think attracted mates or conserved body heat. Actually, that's what scientists say about anything on an animal they don't understand. They could find evidence of an iguanadon with a ZZ Top beard and they'd say "the beard was probably to conserve body heat or attract mates." Which, come to think of it, is probably what ZZ Top uses them for. Anyhow, C Tyrannosaurus Rex Cool animal. Name means "Tyrant Lizard King." Cool. I wish my name meant "Tyrant Lizard King." Anyhow, we all know what makes this such a great dinosaur--it could completely eat you. Plus the little tiny forearms make it look like some demented nightmare beast from the fertile mind of Tim Burton. A+ Velociraptor These guys got a lot of press from "Jurassic Park," but let's face it, they're pretty lacking. They couldn't even manage to eat two little kids, one of whom had only minutes before been turned into a toaster pastry. Sure, they got the hunter, but he was coming up with cute last words when he should have been running like a bunny. And then all three of them got totally worked by a baby Tyrannosaurus! Lame! D! Stegosaurus Two words: spiked tail. "Oh, so you're sneaking up behind me to eat my delicious body? WHAM! Spikes! For you! In your head!" Plus it had I-am-an-industrial-monster plates on its back, which while probably for conserving body heat or attracting mates, were impressive-looking. A Iguanadon Aladar, the proto-protagonist from the Disney Dinosaur movie, was an Iguanadon. They didn't play that up much in the promotional material, because "Iguanadon" is a dumb name. It means "Iguana Tooth," which sounds like one of those inexplicable taunts third graders make up if your name doesn't rhyme with "butt" or "fart." The other thing is that Iguanadons had a pointy thumb-like appendage which sticks straight up in most Iguanadon portrayals, which makes the things look like they're patiently waiting for Peterbilt to be founded so they can hitch a ride to the next Phish concert. C Sauroposeidon Those whole "largest dinosaur" thing is tough to track down, because "Fun Fact" placemats aren't known for their exacting fact-checking. For a while there, UIltrasaurus was the main contender, except there were two types of Ultrasauri and they weren't actually all that big and it was all pretty stupid. Anyhow, near as I can tell, the most recent candidate for "biggest-assed creature of all time" is the Sauroposeidon ("Earthquake God Lizard"). The Sauroposeidon was also one of the last of the dinosaurs; there's some sort of moral there, but I don't think it applies to me. C+ Pterodactyl Pterodactyls are cool for two obvious reasons: they can fly and they have a silent "p." The same applies to Pteranadons, of course, but we've already established that paleontologists worry about teeth too much. Anyhow, Pterodactyl either couldn't really fly, instead only gliding, or it couldn't fly very well. But Pterodactyl-shaped transforming robot cartoon characters can fly, and that's what's really important. B+ Pleisiosaur Completing the prehistoric triathlon, Pleisiosaur is a seagoing dinosaur, if you take the word dinosaur to include "things that are not technically speaking dinosaurs but end up in the dinosaur section of the plush toy aisle nonetheless." As with other reptiles of the era, we're not sure exactly what Pleisiosaur looked like, but we are absolutely certain that it was huggable and a friend to all the children. Also, scientists are completely sure that any mysterious lake monsters that are not actually floating logs or delirium tremens are Pleisiosaurs. B Oviraptor This creature's name means "egg stealer." It is so named because it does not steal eggs. When the first Oviraptor fossil was found, it was on top of some eggs, so the discoverers drew the obvious conclusion that it was stealing them. This is because it was discovered by the LAPD. As it turns out, those were probably the thing's own eggs. But, okay, they think that the species as a whole may have eaten eggs -- other creatures' eggs -- anyway. It just seems like the sort of thing they'd do. I'm going back to bed. C-     Syntax Error/:|Forum|Articles|