STOP Believing These Eight Myths about Dinosaurs

There is so much to learn about the extraordinary creatures who once upon a time were the kings of the world. Even after 200 years since the first dinosaur was found and dug up, we don’t know nearly enough about those scary and enigmatic creatures. Therefore, there are so many misinformation on dinosaurs.

Here are some of the myths about dinosaurs that we shouldn’t believe in.

Myth Number 1 – Dinosaurs are Extinct

Alright, you won’t find a dinosaur like in the photo above walking down Broadway Avenue, but dinosaurs are not completely extinct. Despite the devastating meteorite that hit the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago, dinosaurs are not entirely wiped from the face of the planet Earth. Believe it or not, every bird is a dinosaur. Crazy, right?

Myth Number 2 – Cold-Blooded Dinosaurs

The usual depiction of dinosaurs is that they are large, cold-blooded monsters. However, the truth is more complicated than that. From bone examinations, we found out that their metabolisms were so fast, and a dinosaur could not rely on the sun for body heat. The question is how they produced heat? It’s a mystery since there are a lot of different ways to keep body heat.

Myth Number 3 – Dinosaurs Were Scaly

Some dinosaurs were scaly but some were not. Based on the impression of their skin, we can say that not all dinosaurs were scaly. Some even had feathers. Those were times when the distinction between birds and dinosaurs was not clear. So, in conclusion, Jurassic Park is not telling us the whole truth about the amazing world of dinosaurs.

Myth Number 4 – Dinosaurs Were Brown or Green

Believe it or not, we know the colors of some dinosaurs and they were not all green or brown as depicted in Hollywood movies. Some dinosaurs were red, white, black and other colors. Also, they didn’t necessarily have one color. Some dinosaurs even had raccoon-like tales.

Myth Number 5 – Not All Dinosaurs Were Around at the Same Time

Think about the two most famous dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurus rex and Stegosaurus. One was a giant meat-eater and the other one was a plant-eater with a lot of dangerous defensive spikes. However, they never crossed each other’s paths.

Myth Number 6 – Dinosaurs Were a Failure of Evolution

When someone is not up to speed with today’s modern world, what do we call them? A dinosaur. Even worse, if someone is slow or bad at what they do, we might call them a dinosaur. This is not fair. Dinosaurs ruled the world for approximately 186 million years. We, humans, are “ruling” the world for only the past 300,000 years. We have 185.7 million years ahead of us before we can make fun of dinosaurs or before we consider them to be an evolutionary failure.

Myth Number 7 – All Dinosaurs Were Giants

The skeletons and fossils of giant dinosaurs were the first ones that caught our attention. Now, that we know what we are looking for, we are finding dinosaurs of all sizes and shapes. Some dinosaurs were as huge as a passenger airplane, but some were as small as a pigeon.

Myth Number 8 – Mammals Evolved After Dinosaurs Died Out

It’s our understanding that mammals evolved from a reptile which we call the cynodont and it looked like a scaly rat and lived 200 million years ago, which is way before dinosaurs. Mammals diversified into two lines of evolution: marsupial and placental line, which happened approximately 165 million years ago. Mammals lived in the world of dinosaurs but once the non-bird dinosaurs were wiped out from the Earth, mammals started to diversify, grow to a bigger size and spread around the world. It’s hard to say if we would be here if dinosaurs had stayed around.

Source: www.gildshire.com