# Dinosaurs!



## StudentoftheReptile

I'm a HUGE dinosaur nut...that pretty much sums up this thread. Enjoy the pics!
------------
*Orlando Science Center* in downtown Florida

Mososaur skeletons. *Mosasaurs* are one of my favorite prehistoric reptiles. These things must have been super BAs of their day.

Platecarpus










Tylosaurus













another species of smaller mosasaur





Tyrannosaurus rex





Pachycephalosaurus





Not exactly a herp, but still cool...Xiphanctinus, the prehistoric tarpon from hades!





This place also had a really cool bayou exhibit that featured aquatic turtles and juvenile alligators.













*Dinowalk Museum* in Pigeon Forge, TN. Kinda pricey to get in, but we were on our honeymoon and had some extra cash to blow. Most of the dinosaurs were pretty close to life-sized and fairly anatomically-accurate, although one might debate the absence of feathers on some.

Sarcosuchus, giant prehistoric crocodile with a skull almost the size of a Camaro









Deinonychus





Coelophysis





Velociraptors attacking a Oviraptor









Tyrannossaurus








-------

Dimetrodon. Wouldn't one of these be cool to keep?





Allosaurus









compsognathid





head of Apatosaurus (the entire model took up almost the length of the building)





forgot what these were. Troodon, perhaps?





Protoceratops





Microceratops?




------

some type of oviraptor





Dilophosaurus









dromeasaur





Scutellosaurus





Ornitholestes





Herrerasaurus





Parasaurolophus (Who remembers having trouble pronouncing that one as a kid?)





------
another dromeasaur





Ornithocheirus





Styracosaurus









mosasaur





Albertosaurus





Dimorphodon





Postosuchus


----------



## Tom

Cool pix. Thanks.

I just took my five year old to the Santa Barbara Zoo to see the "Real Live T-Rex". As soon as she saw the dudes legs sticking out the bottom, she was soooooo disappointed. She was utterly disgusted that they had misled her in their commercials...


----------



## StudentoftheReptile

Yeah, I know what she means. A couple years ago, our local science discovery museum has a dinosaur exhibit and I was kinda excited. The wife and I spend $37 total (included an IMAX showing which wasn't bad) and the dinosaur models were crap! They were animatronic, but they hardly moved. A major disappointment compared to this place. Hardly any of them were anatomically correct, and the dilophosaur model "spit" water (obviously, channeling the bogus notion from Jurassic Park).
-----

One of my guilty pleasures in life is that I collect the little Carnegie dinosaurs made by Safari, LTD. I'm 30 yrs old, and I still ask for these things each year for Christmas and my birthday. So far, the only place (not online) that sells them remotely close is the T-Rex Cafe in Downtown Disney in Orlando. Anytime we go down there, I usually get one or two.


----------



## Tom

You know you are a nerd, right? Bad enough that you are now a tortoise nerd, but a dinosaur nerd too?


----------



## StudentoftheReptile

I know. Its better than being a geek or a dork, though.

*Nerd* â€“ intelligent, industrious, understands things

*Geek* â€“ Interested in things that others are not interested in, know a lot about their interests, but usually do not understand underlying principles

*Dork* â€“ Foolish, stupid, clumsy

There's a hierarchy, lol.


----------



## Edna

We asked the BLM office here to send a paleontologist to talk to our students and they sent an historical archeologist instead. My partner teacher couldn't really grasp the difference and her students were also unprepared, so they were firing one dinosaur question after another. The guy did a pretty good job of answering. When the paleo retires, the archeo will be taking his place. He says he's qualified because he was once an 8 year old boy. I guess you'd be overqualified??


----------



## tyguy35

I'm a Dino nerd to lol it's all good.


----------



## Jacqui

Neat they had one of my favorites (Styracosaurus). I was never into dinosaurs myself, but my oldest child was. He made sure I got a fairly good education in them as an adult.


----------



## dmmj

Here I thought this was gonna be a thread about time travelling. 
Nice pics BTW.


----------



## ALDABRAMAN

Great pictures!


----------



## mary t

One of my guilty pleasures in life is that I collect the little Carnegie dinosaurs made by Safari, LTD. I'm 30 yrs old, and I still ask for these things each year for Christmas and my birthday. So far, the only place (not online) that sells them remotely close is the T-Rex Cafe in Downtown Disney in Orlando. Anytime we go down there, I usually get one or two.[/QUOTE]

Not sure where you are located but I'm 40 min away from downtown Disney... Let me know what ya need.. I'm always up for a shopping trip... Out in Colorado, we went to a mammoth dig site.. That got me paying a little more attention at a lot of museums and dinosaurs since then...


----------



## ascott

> Dimetrodon. Wouldn't one of these be cool to keep?



Had to laugh really hard at the visual I got of your statement here....well, I am a lady and I like to paint my toenails...and any women here know what happens when you go into the torts yard with yummy colored toe nails....OUCH would be an understatement with a Dimetrodon....lol 

TRex of course always a fav here and all time fav is Pterodactylus....


----------



## StudentoftheReptile

mary t said:


> Not sure where you are located but I'm 40 min away from downtown Disney... Let me know what ya need.. I'm always up for a shopping trip... Out in Colorado, we went to a mammoth dig site.. That got me paying a little more attention at a lot of museums and dinosaurs since then...



Don't tempt me!

Nah...they are still much cheaper online, but it is nice to go in that store whenever we're down there and see if they have one that I don't! Thanks for the offer, though!




ascott said:


> Dimetrodon. Wouldn't one of these be cool to keep?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Had to laugh really hard at the visual I got of your statement here....well, I am a lady and I like to paint my toenails...and any women here know what happens when you go into the torts yard with yummy colored toe nails....OUCH would be an understatement with a Dimetrodon....lol
Click to expand...


Yeah, I was thinking it would probably be like having a giant monitor lizard with a impressive sailfin (of course, I know these guys were in no way related to varanids). I would imagine being a carnivorous reptile, the husbandry would be similar to that of a large monitor or crocodilian.


----------



## mary t

ascott said:


> Had to laugh really hard at the visual I got of your statement here....well, I am a lady and I like to paint my toenails...and any women here know what happens when you go into the torts yard with yummy colored toe nails....OUCH
> 
> I'm telling you, even if you have socks on, it's like they can see threw them... I've started wearing my garden crocs, when I remember and he can still home in on my toenails because of the holes. My family thinks its funny when I go out because I end up doing the high step dance all over his yard while he chases me...


----------



## Itort

So now I know I'm not the only adult freak for the Age of Dinosaurs. I found a beautiful ammonite at a rock show which I bought. When my grandson saw it, he wanted to know more about it. I let him borrow my copy of Oceans of Kansas and next you know he and I had our own shadowbox display. In addition to the ammonite, it now has a mosasaur tooth, a Squalicorax shark tooth, and two small herring-like fish. He loves showing it off to friends.


----------



## BowandWalter

I've loved Dimetrodon since I watched a documentary on them ages ago. As for fossils, my Granny traveled all over collecting fossils, and when I was small she'd go around hiding them in the yard. Playing explorer is so much more awesome when you get to find a clutch of eggs, ammonites, or heteromorphs. All of which I still have.


----------

