The thread for all things prehistoric

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Subject: The thread for all things prehistoric!

Posted by: ElusiveDream
Date: Nov 19 15

From trilobites to dinosaurs to mammoths, this thread is for talking about all things prehistoric!

32 replies. On page 1 of 2 pages. 1 2

ElusiveDream

I'll start off then, shall I? Hands up who can tell me what an Ammonite was?

Reply #1. Nov 19 15, 5:47 PM

Mommakat

One of the coiled fossil shells of an extinct mollusc

Reply #2. Nov 19 15, 6:19 PM

MiraJane

The Canadian ones are gorgeous. The Russian ones are ugly black & gray. I no longer have any of my jewelry of either.

Reply #3. Nov 19 15, 6:27 PM

ElusiveDream

You are correct, Mommakat, Ammonites were molluscs. To be more precise, they were cephalopods, like today's octopus. Some had straight, pointy shells, but the more familiar ones had spiral shells. When the first Ammonites were found, people thought they were snakes that had curled up and turned into stone. Ammonites came in various sizes. Some were as small as a fifty cent coin while others were as big as dinner plates. Among my small fossil collection (most of which I bought from my local museum), I have a beautifully preserved 165 million year old Dactylus Ammonite.

Reply #4. Nov 19 15, 11:03 PM

ElusiveDream

I run a team called 'Dynamic Dinosaurs'. One of the threads on our message board, titled "Is it a dinosaur?" is designed to test your dino knowledge by asking you to identify whether or not a particular prehistoric animal is a dinosaur, so let's have a go. Here's the first one: Was Elasmosaurus a dinosaur?

Reply #5. Nov 19 15, 11:22 PM

ElusiveDream

Since no one's bothered to take a guess, I'll give you the answer. Elasmosaurus was not a dinosaur. It actually belonged to a group of marine reptiles called Plesiosaurs. Let's have another go: was Dimetrodon a dinosaur?

Reply #6. Nov 23 15, 4:02 AM

SisterSeagull

No... The Dimetrodon pre-dated the dinosaurs by some considerable timespan. I think they belonged to a group called the Rauischians.

Reply #7. Nov 23 15, 5:01 AM

SisterSeagull

I was wrong... They were synapsids.

Reply #8. Nov 23 15, 5:08 AM

ElusiveDream

Well done, SisterSeagull! Contrary to popular belief, Dimetrodon was not a dinosaur. It was actually a mammal-like reptile and went extinct roughly 40 million years before the first dinosaurs evolved.

Let's try this one: was Nomingia a dinosaur?

Reply #9. Nov 23 15, 7:52 PM

ElusiveDream

Since no-one's bothered to take a guess, I'll give you the answer. Nomingia WAS a dinosaur. It was a relative of the more famous Oviraptor and it lived in Mongolia during the Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous period.

Let's try another one: was Ophiderpeton a dinosaur?

Reply #10. Dec 19 15, 7:14 PM

Mommakat

It was a pre-historic amphibian.

Reply #11. Dec 19 15, 7:49 PM

ElusiveDream

Well done, Mommakat! Ophiderpeton (meaning "Snake amphibian") was an legless snake-like amphibian from the Carboniferous and Permian periods, found worldwide from the USA to Europe.

Let's try this one: was Pteranodon a dinosaur?

Reply #12. Dec 20 15, 12:11 AM

Jabberwok

I love fossil hunting, Sussex is the place where Gideon Mantell discovered the first evidence of iguanadon.
I have fossils instead of knick-knacks and ornaments on my shelves, some found and some bought. The Jurassic coast of Dorset is within easy reach, and my sona nd I have happily scuttled over many a rock looking for bits. The Natural History Museum in London is also one of our favourite haunts.

I also got very excited when Jurrasic Park first came out. :D

What about you, Elusive?

Reply #13. Dec 20 15, 1:16 AM

ElusiveDream

I've loved dinosaurs since I was a little kid and I've got a huge collection. Toys, books, posters, t-shirts, virtually anything I can find that has a dinosaur on it. I even have a dinosaur tattooed on my leg. My dinosaur fossils include a piece of Oviraptor eggshell and fragments of dinosaur bone.

Reply #14. Dec 20 15, 2:30 AM

Jabberwok

Are their any active geological/fossil hunting groups near enough for you to join and meet up with other enthusiasts?
Expeditions are good with company that knows what they are actually seeing.

Reply #15. Dec 20 15, 3:25 AM

ElusiveDream

I joined a fossil hunting group once when I was a kid. It was very enjoyable and I got to keep the fossils I found. Among my discoveries are a number of things that I think might be worm burrows. I also found the imprints of sea shells and what looks like half a starfish.

Reply #16. Dec 20 15, 5:19 AM

ElusiveDream

It seems we've gone a little off track here. So what do you think? Was Pteranodon a dinosaur or not?

Reply #17. Dec 20 15, 4:47 PM

Jabberwok

No, it was a flying reptile.
By definition, all dinosaurs belong to the groups Saurischia and Ornithischia, which exclude pterosaurs.

Reply #18. Dec 20 15, 5:56 PM

ElusiveDream

Well done, Jabberwok, Pteranodon was indeed a huge flying reptile, more commonly called a Pterosaur. It was once thought to be the largest Pterosaur, but we now know there were bigger ones.

Let's try this one: was Carnotaurus a dinosaur?

Reply #19. Dec 20 15, 8:10 PM

ElusiveDream

Since no-one bothered to take a guess, I'll give you the answer. Carnotaurus WAS a dinosaur. It belonged to a group of Theropods called the Abelisauridae, which were characterised by the small horns above their eyes and their ridiculously short arms. If you think T-Rex had short arms, the arms of Carnotaurus were shorter.

Let's try another one: was Ichthyosaurus a dinosaur?

Reply #20. Dec 21 15, 6:45 PM

32 replies. On page 1 of 2 pages. 1 2

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