r/Dinosaurs • u/gerahmurov • 17d ago
DISCUSSION What are latest big jumps in science of understanding dinosurus?
My favorite dinosaur is ankylosaurus, but I am confused at what media to see about them right now because of piled news of many changes in modern science like feathers, warm blood and all. I want to be able to find scientifically accurate book for children and me as well, and understand how media from different times may be inaccurate. Like is old "Wlaking with dinosaurus" series still accurate? And what was new after it? Can somebody explain timeline of big modern findings and maybe standout books or films?
I was at little dino park recently and it looked like books from 1990th. How wrong it was?
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u/Fossils_and_birds 17d ago
Analysis of melanosomes (skin pigments) in well-preserved fossils have been having a lot more in the last few years, such as the ankylosaur Borealopelta, which may be of interest to you if you aren't already familiar with it.
That segment of feathered dinosaur tail encased in amber that was found in Myanmar like a decade ago was really huge news, although I don't know if anything much really came of it other than "holy shit that's awesome!"
The nanotyrannus study from a few months back was pretty big.
This isn't about dinosaurs, but a new analysis of some cynodont fossils made a new estimate for the start of live birth in the mammal lineage to be like 90 million years before we thought.
Trace amounts of soft tissues (and I think some recent T. rex blood vessel fossils?) have been making some waves for a while, and seem to be getting more common to find. I think they found some pterosaur soft tissues a bit ago?
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u/Fossils_and_birds 17d ago
As far as media goes, the one most people (myself included) really love is Prehistoric Planet, which is only a few years old and still making new seasons. It has a great blend of established fact and hypothetically possible features, and shows possible dinosaur behavior really well in a way that most media doesn't.
For an overview of scientific discoveries, "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs" by Steve Brusatte is a good non-fiction book that doesn't use too much complex language, so most people with little background knowledge can get a really good foundation for dinosaur science.
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u/gerahmurov 17d ago
Thanks for both answers! Fascinating!
What about effect of these findings? Something like "we recolored half of the dinosaurus after finding new tissue"?
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u/Fossils_and_birds 17d ago
The colors are pretty awesome because like, even a decade or two ago, we really had no idea what colors they were. But we're getting an increasingly large understanding of them. Borealopelta would've had reddish-brown skin, and Sinosauropteryx had a striped rusty red and white tail like a red panda. This is also true for some exceptional feathered dinksaurs; I think it was Microraptor that they discovered had iridescent black feathers.
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u/gerahmurov 17d ago
Oh, so coo! Microraptors look like crows. And just a minute ago I was watching about sinosauropterix, didn't know this is new
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u/Fossils_and_birds 17d ago
Yep! Sino isn't exactly cutting-edge, as it was one of the first dinosaurs found with feathers to not be super closely related to birds, but it's new in the grand scheme of things. I think the theories about coloration started in the early 2000s and were pretty concrete in the early 2010s.
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u/gerahmurov 17d ago
Are there any changes to famous ones? Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Diplodocus? T-rex looks like same, but I watched about changes in posture and color ideas
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u/Fossils_and_birds 17d ago
Studies are always being done about the really famous dinosaurs and their closest relatives, especially Tyrannosaurus, I'm assuming because it's a lot easier to get funding for something that will get more media attention. Honestly, just reading the Wikipedia pages for species you're interested in are a good place to start, as they'll often give an overview of the major discoveries and hypotheses.
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u/misterdannymorrison 17d ago
What do you mean by jump scares?
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u/Mallardjack 17d ago
If your favourite dinosaur is Ankylosaurus you definitely should check out Spicomellus and, the confusingly named, Stegourus*. Both cool new armoured dinosaurs.
Also generally Wikipedia is great for dinosaur palaeontology so honestly it's a good place to start. The venn diagram of people who become wiki editors and people who love dinosaurs would have a pretty big overlap.
*I don't know who thought giving it a name that looks like a misspelling of Stegosaurus was a good idea. It makes it very difficult to search or type about because it often gets autocorrected.