About

Paleontology is the study of prehistoric life.

History and Background

Online History

Notable related media

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park Jurassic Park is a series of science fiction novels and films about an island theme park populated by dinosaurs that have been secretly cloned from fossil DNA. Based on the 1990 eponymous novel by Michael Crichton, the story expanded into a blockbuster media franchise consisting of several films, comic books and video games throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. The original film is highly regarded in the paleontology community as bringing the public perception of dinosaurs in line with the ideas of the animals following the dinosaur renaissance. By contrast, many of the newer films have been derided by many in the paleontology community.

Prehistoric Planet

Prehistoric Planet is a 2022 British nature documentary mini-series produced by the BBC for the Apple streaming service Apple TV+ narrated by English broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough. The series was highly anticipated by the online paleontology community due its high budget, attention to accuracy, and realistic speculation.

Notable memes

Paleontology-related memes often straddle the line between the original meaning of the term as defined by Dawkins as a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation and replication. This is particularly notable in the concept of "paleo-art" memes which often had artists following trends and concepts of artists prior to them, often independent of what current evidence showed.

The Bone Wars

Spinosaurs

Spinosaurs has been notable in the paleontology community; the destruction of the holotype during allied bombings of Germany during WWI, for it's usage as in the third installment of the Jurassic Park film franchise, and the relatively rapid changes to how the animal has been depicted over the past few decades.

Nanotyrannus

Nanotyrannus was a proposed genus describing relatively small tyrannosaur fossils. The genus name was coined in 1998 by Robert Bakker who thought these fossils represented a new genus. However, it was later shown that all specimens thought to belong to the genus were immature, and most of the paleontology community is of the mindset that fossils that were described as "nanotyrannus" are young Tyrannosaurs.

Scavenger Tyrannosaurs

Scavenger Tyrannosaurs was an idea that some large carnivorous theropods, such as Tyrannosaurs rex most often scavenged their food and were not active predators. While this idea dates back to at least 1917, it was more recently advocated by Paleontologist Jack Horner, and has frequently been presented in media that Horner has worked on. However, this idea of Tyrannosaurs being primarily scavengers is not one that many other paleontologists agree with.

is an expression associated with a video in which the narrator seductively repeats the phrase “ah, the scalene triangle” while zooming in on an illustration of the geometric figure.

Feathered Dinosaurs

Feathered Dinosaurs refers to several non-avian dinosaurs showing evidence for feathers. This has been found in several different species in different parts of the family tree. However, this has often been negatively perceived by the public, many seeing the inclusion of feathers as making dinosaurs no longer seem 'scary"

Birds are not Dinosaurs

Birds are not Dinosaurs is the idea that birds are not descended from non-avian dinosaurs, but from somewhere else in the tree of life. Supporters are often referred to as "BANDits" within the paleontology community. They make up a very small minority of people in the paleontological community.

Ornithoscelida

Ornithoscelida refers to a proposed new phylogenetic grouping of dinosaurs which differs from the traditional classification. Published in March 2017, the paper by Baron et al., titled "A new hypothesis of dinosaur relationships and early dinosaur evolution," hypothesizes that Theropods are more closely related to Ornithischians than Sauropodomorphs. This proposed classification, while notable in the online community, has not since been widely adopted.

Search Interest

External References