Dinosaurs have fascinated mankind since their existence was first discovered. As with all things scientific, however, simply being fascinated by something didn't mean our love was based in fact. We had no idea what we were talking about at all. There were some wildly incorrect things we used to believe about dinosaurs.
In fact, there are some pretty hilarious facts about dinosaurs we thought were real. Did you know scientists used to believe some dinosaurs had two brains, one of which was in their butt? It's also not true dinosaurs were killed by caterpillars, their own farts, or eating too many eggs. It's also surprising how many animals today evolved from dinosaurs - something else you probably didn't know. The biggest myth, though, is what dinosaurs really look like. So turn off Jurassic Park, throw away your brontosaurus memorabilia, and get ready to have your mind rocked by these totally wrong things we used to believe about dinosaurs.
15 Laughably Wrong Things People Used To Think About The Dinosaurs,
Dinosaurs Farted Themselves To Death
Gather round, five-year-olds of the Internet, because this dinosaur extinction theory is for you! You could even say ex-STINK-tion theory. Or not, because that’s a terrible joke. Sorry.
Anyway. There's a real theory that dinosaurs had so much flatulence they created a methane cloud that killed them off. Researchers calculated how much methane gas enormous sauropods could have produced in their lifetimes, and figured it could have been enough to warm the planet. While this might have been enough to influence the climate, the researchers were not intending to imply this actually killed any dinosaurs. However, the media jumped on the study, misinterpreted it, and the idea that dinosaurs farted themselves to death took hold.
Dinosaurs Look Like The Lizards From Jurassic Park
When most people think about dinosaurs, they think of gigantic, scaly lizard beasts like those in the Jurassic Park franchise. These images, while iconic, aren’t terribly accurate. Rather than lizards, dinosaurs most closely resemble birds.
That’s right, birds. According to evidence from fossils, dinosaurs were probably covered in feathers. Not only did dinosaurs have feathers, but they also had respiratory systems that work the way that birds’ respiratory systems work today. If you’re upset by this news because you think it makes dinosaurs look less bad-ass, take comfort in the words of paleontologist Robert Bakker, who describes the velociraptor as “the 20,000 pound roadrunner from Hell.”
They Went Extinct From Eating Too Many Eggs
According to an early 20th century paleontologist named George Wieland, the dinosaurs died off from eating too many eggs.
No, this doesn’t mean they were all poisoned to death by bad egg salad. It means carnivorous dinosaurs ate so many fertilized dinosaur eggs from other species that dinosaurs as a whole went extinct. While there is some evidence that some dinosaurs did prey on eggs and even hatched baby dinosaurs, there’s no evidence it happened at such a extreme rate that it brought the whole species to its collective knees.
The Elasmosaurus Had A Snake Neck
One of the first interpretation of the elasmosaurus was actually pretty cool looking, if totally inaccurate. Othniel Charles Marsh believed the elasmosaurus’s long neck was “snake-like” meaning not only did it look like a snake, but it had the same incredible range of motion. We now know that because the elasmosaurus had only 71 vertebrae in its very long neck, its range of motion was far more limited. It could only move side-to-side or up-and-down.
We also thought the elasmosaurus crawled out of the ocean to give birth on land, but because of its inability to move efficiently, it most likely just gave birth in the ocean.
Humans And Dinosaurs Lived At The Same Time
Actually, a lot of people still think this one is true. Creationists believe that all life on Earth was created by the Christian god, and that it all happened within a week. While some creationists don’t believe dinosaurs ever existed, some do attempt to account for fossil evidence by saying humans and dinosaurs lived together. The Institute for Creation Research claims “God had told Noah to bring pairs of each kind of land animal on board the Ark, including, evidently, the dinosaurs.”
According to the University of California Museum of Paleontology, “the last of the dinosaurs - with the exception of the birds, which are dinosaur descendants - died about 65 million years ago. There is no reputable evidence of human life at the time, or at any time until about 2.5 million years ago, the age of the oldest known fossils in the genus Homo.”
Advanced Dinosaurs Rule Alien Worlds
Dr. Ronald Breslow, a chemistry professor at Columbia University, claims a study he conducted on the chemistry of amino acids implies that, if life does exist on other planets, said life could be an advanced version of our dinosaurs. Some scientists believe the amino acids dominating earth’s lifeforms arrived to us via meteorite 4 billion years ago. If this happened on earth, Breslow believes it could also have happened on other planets, which could lead to the development similar life forms.
Other scientists, such as Dr. Paul “PZ” Myers, associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris, believe this is is a nonsense theory with no proof whatsoever behind it.
Early Drawings Of The Megalosaurus Were Way Wrong
The first dinosaur fossil to ever receive a name was the megalosaurus. Because it was the first, no one had a solid idea of what it would look like as an actual, living animal. In 1857, Samuel Goodrich came up with this bizarre, crocodile-like interpretation of the megalosaurus. The real megalosaurus stands upright, and looks much more like a common t-rex than a crocodile. While Goodrich can’t be faulted for being so far off from the modern interpretation, you have to admit, this drawing is pretty silly looking.
The Brontosaurus Was A Real Dinosaur
The brontosaurus, also known as a the “thunder lizard” had a massive body, a long swooping tail, and an unusually small head. It’s also about as real as the Loch Ness Monster.
In the 1870s, paleontology went through a period called the Bone Wars. During the Bone Wars, two paleontologists named Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope were trying to outdo each other by discovering new dinosaurs as fast as they could. The rivals were so desperate to destroy each other they intentionally sabotaged each other’s work by having dinosaur skeletons smashed before the other guy could dig them up.
In 1877, Marsh found a partial apatosaurus skeleton. It didn’t have a skull, so in 1883 he hastily completed the skeleton with the skull of another dinosaur, the camarasaurus. Two years later, his team found what they thought was a different dinosaur, but was actually just an apatosaurus with its proper head. Desperate to beat Cope, he quickly determined the complete apatosaurus was a new dinosaur called the brontosaurus. It wasn’t until almost 100 years later the truth was discovered by a group of Carnegie researchers. The brontosaurus isn’t a thing - it’s just an apatosaurus with the right skull.
Some Dinosaurs Had Brains In Their Butts
Othniel Charles Marsh, also known as the man who brought us the nonexistent brontosaurus, believed the camarasaurus and the stegosaurus had brains in their butts. He thought this because they had a neural opening toward the bottom of their spines, and there had to be something there, right?
While this sounds like complete nonsense, it’s actually not as out there as it seems. These huge dinosaurs, known as sauropods, had extremely tiny brains, especially considering the size of their bodies. An extra brain could control the legs and lower body parts. We still don’t know what the neural opening actually contained, but we do know for certain that it wasn’t a butt brain.
The Dinosaurs Died Off Because Of Cataracts
In 1982, an ophthalmologist named L.R. Croft suggested that dinosaurs died of a terrible plague - cataracts.
While cataracts - a medical condition where the lenses of the eye become opaque - aren’t exactly fun, they’re not typically considered fatal. At worst, cataracts can cause blindness.
Heat can make cataracts grow faster, and Croft believed many dinosaurs were going blind before they hit sexual maturity. While this might result in fewer dinosaurs reproducing, it wouldn’t make it completely impossible. It also doesn’t even begin to explain why all non-avian dinosaurs went extinct en masse 65 million years ago.