dinosaur

created by ndrs

(thing) by Ereneta (2.3 hr) (print) ? (I like it!) 1 C! Sat Nov 13 1999 at 9:13:53

Order of Reptile popular with the under five crowd.

Term invented by Sir Richard Owen in 1842 to describe the "fearfully great lizards" (Greek- Deinos, "that which inspires fear and awe," and Sauros, "lizard") discovered in Europe, specifically the Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, and Hylaeosaurus. Today, mostly used to describe extinct, non-avian members of Dinosauria, which were the dominant fauna of Jurassic and Cretaceous eras (often erroneously including the contemporaneous pleisosaurs, icthyosaurs, and pterosaurs).

The first dinosaurs appeared in the Triassic, about 230 million years ago.

(thing) by N-Wing (9.5 hr) (print) ? (I like it!) Tue Jan 18 2000 at 0:51:15

my response to another writeup
Webster 1913 is a little out-of-date about the "written also" stuff - it isn't valid that way any more.

movie
Dinosaur is also the name of a movie by Disney. The release date was around spring 2000 (spring in the Northern hemisphere). From looking at the preview, the computer graphics are amazing. The vegetation, water, and some animals are almost perfect.

Without giving away the ending (not that kids movies usually have unexpected endings):
The movie start with (and preview consists of) a lone dinosaur egg being moved to a an island inhabited by mammals. The egg hatches, and a group of monkeys (or monkeys' ancestors) raise him. (All within about 10 minutes; dinosaurs sure grow quickly.) Then, one night, a "small" meteor hits and wipes out life on the island. Of course, our dino and immediate adopted family escape... escape to be almost eaten by {a group of small predetor dinos}. Just when they're about to become dinner, a herd of (bigger) migrating dinosaurs scare away the small pests. (Nevermind that there are about 5 of each time of dino in the group.) {main dino's name}, our lucky egg, joins the group and finds a girl ... who happens to be the sister of the leader of entire herd. The leader becomes a foil for {name}, and ignores {names}'s suggestions whenever possible. (more...)

(idea) by mofaha (1.2 d) (print) ? (I like it!) Fri Jan 26 2001 at 22:31:52

A dismissive and derogatory term for an outmoded or irrelevant person or institution.

Though of uncertain origin, this particular usage first became widespread in England in the popular music press during the heyday of Punk Rock, around 1976-77. The two main weekly popular music tabloids at the time, 'New Musical Express' (aka NME) and 'Melody Maker', denounced as a dinosaur practically every performer who was popular before 1976. The expression was quickly taken up by the media in general, and its meaning widened to include anyone or anything that was deemed to be out of date.

It is somewhat ironic that Mark Knopfler, who as the leader of stadium rock band 'Dire Straits' was among the many artist dismissed as a dinosaur, now has an actual dinosaur named after him (Masiakasaurus knopfleri). I suppose it would have been rather more ironic if John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) had one named after him though (Masiakasaurus rotteni?).

(thing) by Apatrix (3.3 hr) (print) ? (I like it!) 2 C!s Mon Jan 29 2001 at 4:31:25

Dinosaur Genera

This is as complete a list as I've been able to produce of all currently known dinosaur genera - including their pterosaur and lagosuchian relatives - organised alphabetically and linked to respective nodes.

Within each genera there may be dozens of species, and the page for each genus will in turn link to each of these (for example, the Tyrannosaurus entry will link to Tyrannosaurus rex and Tyrannosaurus bataar).

Please /msg me if you discover any mistakes or omissions & I'll correct them.

Editor's note, 2004-01-06: This writeup was originally created by memebomb. After revising and maintaining it for two years I've taken ownership of it. -ap