In addition, the cartilages were ossified, implying that laryngeal ossification is a feature of some non-avian dinosaurs. Although it has been suggested that most dinosaurs were active during the day, these comparisons have shown that small predatory dinosaurs such as dromaeosaurids, Juravenator, and Megapnosaurus were likely nocturnal. [170] Additional evidence for attacking live prey is the partially healed tail of an Edmontosaurus, a hadrosaurid dinosaur; the tail is damaged in such a way that shows the animal was bitten by a tyrannosaur but survived. But what I learn now is that the Troodon never existed. [143], The tallest and heaviest dinosaur known from good skeletons is Giraffatitan brancai (previously classified as a species of Brachiosaurus). Few of the specimens that are recovered are complete skeletons, and impressions of skin and other soft tissues are rare. Sauropods, like earlier sauropodomorphs, were not oral processors, but ornithischians were evolving various means of dealing with food in the mouth, including potential cheek-like organs to keep food in the mouth, and jaw motions to grind food. [294], Non-avian dinosaur remains have occasionally been found above the K-Pg boundary. Despite their unrefined methods, the contributions of Cope and Marsh to paleontology were vast: Marsh unearthed 86 new species of dinosaur and Cope discovered 56, a total of 142 new species. Ceratopsians developed a method of slicing with teeth stacked on each other in batteries, and iguanodontians refined a method of grinding with dental batteries, taken to its extreme in hadrosaurids. [110] Predatory theropod dinosaurs, which occupied most terrestrial carnivore niches during the Mesozoic, most often fall into the 100 to 1000kg (220 to 2200lb) category when sorted by estimated weight into categories based on order of magnitude, whereas recent predatory carnivoran mammals peak in the 10 to 100kg (22 to 220lb) category. Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles [note 1] of the clade Dinosauria. Complete nonsense) Another has his own YouTube Channel and say's that Yutyrannus and other feathered dinosaurs don't exist and are all made in China. There is evidence that many types of slow-growing dinosaurs, including various theropods, sauropods, ankylosaurians, ornithopods, and ceratopsians, formed aggregations of immature individuals. This was a revolutionary discovery as, until that point, most scientists had believed dinosaurs walked on four feet, like other lizards. Dinosaurs are big and impressive megafauna. [81] (However, some researchers have also suggested that fossilized melanosomes represent bacterial remains. [271][272][278] However, these comparisons did not account either for varying preservation potential between rock units or for different extents of exploration and excavation. tim hooper. Above the CretaceousPaleogene boundary, which has been dated to 66.038 0.025 million years ago,[269] fossils of non-avian dinosaurs disappear abruptly; the absence of dinosaur fossils was historically used to assign rocks to the ensuing Cenozoic. When found in association with fossils, gizzard stones are called gastroliths. Of these, skin coverings based on keratin proteins are most easily preserved because of their cross-linked, hydrophobic molecular structure. There have been many attempts to justify this, but the fact remains that without changing the laws of physics, it is not possible. [228][229] However, at least some modern birds (such as hummingbirds) can be facultatively ammonotelic, excreting most of the nitrogenous wastes as ammonia. [290] Now, the bulk of the evidence suggests that a bolide .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}5 to 15 kilometers (3 to 9+12 miles) wide impacted the Yucatn Peninsula 66 million years ago, forming this crater[291] and creating a "kill mechanism" that triggered the extinction event. The structure was composed of cricoid and arytenoid cartilages, similar to those of non-avian reptiles. Birds, at over 10,700 living species, are among the most diverse groups of vertebrates. [10], A variety of other skeletal features are shared by dinosaurs. Single-task at best. But as it turns out, it never really existed. These stones are swallowed by animals to aid digestion and break down food and hard fibers once they enter the stomach. In the northern continents of North America and Asia, the major theropods were tyrannosaurids and various types of smaller maniraptoran theropods, with a predominantly ornithischian herbivore assemblage of hadrosaurids, ceratopsians, ankylosaurids, and pachycephalosaurians. [67], Prior to the dinosaur renaissance, dinosaurs were mostly classified using the traditional rank-based system of Linnaean taxonomy. Its anatomy indicated that it was an active predator that was likely warm-blooded, in marked contrast to the then-prevailing image of dinosaurs. [99] Suggestions that these structures represent bacterial biofilms[100] have been rejected,[101] but cross-contamination remains a possibility that is difficult to detect. [313] Some estimates have placed the start of the second phase in the Deccan Traps eruptions within 50,000 years after the Chicxulub impact. Most species create somewhat elaborate nests which can be cups, domes, plates, beds scrapes, mounds, or burrows. They resurrected the clade Ornithoscelida to refer to the group containing Ornithischia and Theropoda. [43][50] The second non-avian dinosaur genus to be identified, Iguanodon, was discovered in 1822 by Mary Ann Mantell the wife of English geologist Gideon Mantell. [180] The earliest remains of a syrinx was found in a specimen of the duck-like Vegavis iaai dated 6966million years ago, and this organ is unlikely to have existed in non-avian dinosaurs. [91][92][93] However, in 2005, Schweitzer and colleagues reported that a femur of Tyrannosaurus preserved soft, flexible tissue within, including blood vessels, bone matrix, and connective tissue (bone fibers) that had retained their microscopic structure. [126] Terror birds and bathornithids occupied carnivorous guilds alongside predatory mammals,[127][128] and ratites are still fairly successful as mid-sized herbivores; eogruiids similarly lasted from the Eocene to Pliocene, becoming extinct only very recently after over 20million years of co-existence with many mammal groups. Brought to light just two years after Charles Darwin's seminal On the Origin of Species (1859), its discovery spurred the nascent debate between proponents of evolutionary biology and creationism. For example, the Jurassic dinosaur Stegosaurus had already been extinct for approximately 80 million years before the . [112], When dinosaurs appeared, they were not the dominant terrestrial animals. These ornithodirans support the model of early dinosaurs as small, bipedal predators. This contributed to the widespread public notion of dinosaurs as being sluggish and extraordinarily stupid. [244], Feathers are one of the most recognizable characteristics of modern birds, and a trait that was also shared by several non-avian dinosaurs. [109][110][111] The Santa Maria Formation (radiometrically dated to be older, at 233.23million years old[112]) has produced the herrerasaurids Gnathovorax and Staurikosaurus, along with the sauropodomorphs Bagualosaurus, Buriolestes, Guaibasaurus, Macrocollum, Nhandumirim, Pampadromaeus, Saturnalia, and Unaysaurus. [86][87]) Stomach contents in some Jehol and Yanliao dinosaurs closely related to birds have also provided indirect indications of diet and digestive system anatomy (e.g., crops). [39] Some non-dinosaurian archosaurs, including rauisuchians, also had erect limbs but achieved this by a "pillar-erect" configuration of the hip joint, where instead of having a projection from the femur insert on a socket on the hip, the upper pelvic bone was rotated to form an overhanging shelf. It is built on a fraudulent model to try and disprove the true creation history that was passed down from ancient texts. I used to believe in dinosaurs. [7][8][9][53][54] The term is derived from Ancient Greek (deinos)'terrible, potent or fearfully great', and (sauros)'lizard or reptile'. The React team investigates as conspiracists take to social media to dispel dinosaurs' existence Though the first dinosaurs appeared about 243 million years ago, they remain as prominent as ever today. Agrosaurus - probably a junior synonym of Thecodontosaurus. Evidence suggests that all dinosaurs were egg-laying, and that nest-building was a trait shared by many dinosaurs, both avian and non-avian. [121] The stegosaurians appear to have gone extinct at some point in the late Early Cretaceous or early Late Cretaceous. In 2021, the best preserved specimen of a dinosaur's cloacal vent exterior was described for Psittacosaurus, demonstrating lateral swellings similar to crocodylian musk glands used in social displays by both sexes and pigmented regions which could also reflect a signalling function. Various researchers have supported dinosaurs as being endothermic, ectothermic ("cold-blooded"), or somewhere in between. [98] In 2015, Sergio Bertazzo and colleagues reported the preservation of collagen fibres and red blood cells in eight Cretaceous dinosaur specimens that did not show any signs of exceptional preservation, indicating that soft tissue may be preserved more commonly than previously thought. [59], World War II caused a pause in palaeontological research; after the war, research attention was also diverted increasingly to fossil mammals rather than dinosaurs, which were seen as sluggish and cold-blooded. Timeline of major dinosaur groups per Holtz (2007). [285][286], The bolide impact hypothesis, first brought to wide attention in 1980 by Walter Alvarez, Luis Alvarez, and colleagues, attributes the K-Pg extinction event to a bolide (extraterrestrial projectile) impact. [307] Like the Chicxulub impact, the eruptions may also have released sulfate aerosols, which would have caused acid rain and global cooling. Although some later groups of dinosaurs featured further modified versions of these traits, they are considered typical for Dinosauria; the earliest dinosaurs had them and passed them on to their descendants. A major change in the Early Cretaceous, which would be amplified in the Late Cretaceous, was the evolution of flowering plants. [67] These new localities also led to improvements in overall specimen quality, with new species being increasingly named not on scrappy fossils but on more complete skeletons, sometimes from multiple individuals. Story continues below . [244][255] However, their views have for the most part not been accepted by other researchers, to the point that the scientific nature of Feduccia's proposals has been questioned. The second phase, which occurred very close to the boundary, would have extruded 70 to 80% of the volume of these eruptions in intermittent pulses that occurred around 100,000 years apart. Sauropod tracks document that these animals traveled in groups composed of several different species, at least in Oxfordshire, England,[162] although there is no evidence for specific herd structures. Adasaurus - This raptor's hind claws were unusually small. [129], Dinosaurs belong to a group known as archosaurs, which also includes modern crocodilians. [157] For example, Anchiornis huxleyi is currently the smallest non-avialan dinosaur described from an adult specimen, with an estimated weight of 110g (3.9oz)[158] and a total skeletal length of 34 centimeters (1.12ft). "The assembly of the avian body plan: a 160-million-year long process" (PDF). [39], Dinosaur fossils have been known for millennia, although their true nature was not recognized. [76], Starting from the 1990s, major discoveries of exceptionally preserved fossils in deposits known as conservation Lagersttten contributed to research on dinosaur soft tissues. [266], Some dinosaurs are known to have used gizzard stones like modern birds. [142], Scientists will probably never be certain of the largest and smallest dinosaurs to have ever existed. [24], In 2016, the estimated number of dinosaur species that existed in the Mesozoic was 1,5432,468. [276], At the time of the K-Pg extinction, the Deccan Traps flood basalts of India were actively erupting. [14] A minority of scientists, most notably Alan Feduccia and Larry Martin, have proposed other evolutionary paths, including revised versions of Heilmann's basal archosaur proposal,[243] or that maniraptoran theropods are the ancestors of birds but themselves are not dinosaurs, only convergent with dinosaurs. Last Thread Tools: Mar 22, 2016, 04:57 PM #1; tim hooper. In subsequent decades, dinosaur exhibits opened at parks and museums around the world, ensuring that successive generations would be introduced to the animals in an immersive and exciting way. Diplodocus (/ d p l d k s /, / d a p l d k s /, or / d p l o d o k s /) was a genus of diplodocid sauropod dinosaurs, whose fossils were first discovered in 1877 by S. W. Williston.The generic name, coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, is a neo-Latin term derived from Greek (diplos) "double" and (dokos) "beam", in . Afrovenator. the Earth is flat, gods exist, dinosaurs are actually dragons and Santa is It Was a Dinosaur Tail", "Dinosaurs and the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution", "Exceptional preservation and the fossil record of tetrapod integument", "Recent advances in amniote palaeocolour reconstruction and a framework for future research", "Fossilized melanosomes and the colour of Cretaceous dinosaurs and birds", "Countershading and Stripes in the Theropod Dinosaur, "3D Camouflage in an Ornithischian Dinosaur", "Interpreting melanin-based coloration through deep time: a critical review", "Exceptional soft-tissue preservation in a theropod dinosaur from Italy", "Evidence of proteins, chromosomes and chemical markers of DNA in exceptionally preserved dinosaur cartilage", "Fibres and cellular structures preserved in 75-million-year-old dinosaur specimens", "Dinosaurian Soft Tissues Interpreted as Bacterial Biofilms", "Influence of Microbial Biofilms on the Preservation of Primary Soft Tissue in Fossil and Extant Archosaurs", "A fossil protein chimera; difficulties in discriminating dinosaur peptide sequences from modern cross-contamination", "Assessing the record and causes of Late Triassic extinctions", "The Late Triassic Ischigualasto Formation at Cerro Las Lajas (La Rioja, Argentina): fossil tetrapods, high-resolution chronostratigraphy, and faunal correlations", "A new herrerasaurid (Dinosauria, Saurischia) from the Upper Triassic Ischigualasto Formation of northwestern Argentina", American Association for the Advancement of Science, "The precise temporal calibration of dinosaur origins", "The oldest dinosaur? Regardless, dinosaurs existed alongside non-dinosaurian ornithodirans for a period of time, with estimates ranging from 510 million years[116] to 21 million years. This early bird is so dinosaur-like that, without a clear impression of feathers in the surrounding rock, at least one specimen was mistaken for the small theropod Compsognathus. [321] If the bone was not re-deposited by weathering action, it would provide evidence that some dinosaur populations survived at least half a million years into the Cenozoic. Walter Alvarez himself has acknowledged that the Deccan Traps and other ecological factors may have contributed to the extinctions in addition to the Chicxulub impact. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago, although the exact origin and. [329] The enduring popularity of dinosaurs, in its turn, has resulted in significant public funding for dinosaur science, and has frequently spurred new discoveries. [42], Scholarly descriptions of what would now be recognized as dinosaur bones first appeared in the late 17th century in England. The misconception that non-avian dinosaurs were uniformly gigantic is based in part on preservation bias, as large, sturdy bones are more likely to last until they are fossilized. Such modifications, originating in the most recent common ancestor of a certain taxonomic group, are called the synapomorphies of such a group.[30]. This medullary bone, which is rich in calcium, is used to make eggshells. The scientists conclude that three known species of Brontosaurus exist: Brontosaurus excelsus, the first discovered, as well as B. parvus and B. yahnahpin. [140], The sauropods were the largest and heaviest dinosaurs. A showman named Carl Hagenbeck wrote a book, called Beasts and Men, declaring that dinosaurs might still be alive in Africa. Agnosphitys - a silesaurid dinosauromorph. Saurischia includes the theropods (exclusively bipedal and with a wide variety of diets) and sauropodomorphs (long-necked herbivores which include advanced, quadrupedal groups).[29][133]. The renaissance was also accompanied by the increasingly widespread application of cladistics, a more objective method of classification based on ancestry and shared traits, which has proved tremendously useful in the study of dinosaur systematics and evolution. Authors of general-interest non-fiction works about dinosaurs, including some prominent paleontologists, have often sought to use the animals as a way to educate readers about science in general. These include an elongated scapula, or shoulder blade; a sacrum composed of three or more fused vertebrae (three are found in some other archosaurs, but only two are found in Herrerasaurus);[10] and a perforate acetabulum, or hip socket, with a hole at the center of its inside surface (closed in Saturnalia tupiniquim, for example). By contrast, ornithischians"bird-hipped", from the Greek ornitheios () meaning "of a bird" and ischion () meaning "hip joint"had a pelvis that superficially resembled a bird's pelvis: the pubic bone was oriented caudally (rear-pointing). [188] Superprecociality has been inferred for sauropods. Because the line of dinosaurs that includes Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus diverged from the line that led to Tenontosaurus very early in the evolution of dinosaurs, this suggests that the production of medullary tissue is a general characteristic of all dinosaurs. The release of the first and second editions of The Dinosauria in 1990 and 2004, and of a review paper by Paul Sereno in 1998, were accompanied by increases in the number of published phylogenetic trees for dinosaurs. Enlarge this image Apatosaurus (right, opposite a Diplodocus skeleton at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh), is what paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh actually found when he. [141] There are several proposed advantages for the large size of sauropods, including protection from predation, reduction of energy use, and longevity, but it may be that the most important advantage was dietary. However, the multiple skeletal features also shared by the two groups represent another important line of evidence for paleontologists. [153] The largest individuals may have weighed as much as 16 metric tons (18 short tons). [14], Research by Matthew G. Baron, David B. Norman, and Paul M. Barrett in 2017 suggested a radical revision of dinosaurian systematics. Roy. [289] The actual impact site remained elusive until a crater measuring 180km (110mi) wide was discovered in the Yucatn Peninsula of southeastern Mexico, and was publicized in a 1991 paper by Alan Hildebrand and colleagues. Dinosaurs Never Existed 9 December 2020 Eric Dubay - Dec 28, 2018 The class "Dinosauria" was originally defined by "Sir" Richard Owen of the Royal Society, and Superintendent of the British Museum Natural History Department in 1842. This was followed by the TriassicJurassic extinction event (about 201million years ago), that saw the end of most of the other groups of early archosaurs, like aetosaurs, ornithosuchids, phytosaurs, and rauisuchians. In traditional taxonomy, birds were considered a separate class that had evolved from dinosaurs, a distinct superorder. [235] Later research showed that relative brain size progressively increased during the evolution of theropods, with the highest intelligence comparable to that of modern birds calculated for the troodontid Troodon. [315][316], Whether the Deccan Traps were a major cause of the extinction, on par with the Chicxulub impact, remains uncertain. Thanks to museums, books, and pop culture, dinosaurs remain larger-than-life. Simple, branched, feather-like structures are known from heterodontosaurids, primitive neornithischians,[246] and theropods,[247] and primitive ceratopsians. [49], Between 1815 and 1824, the Rev William Buckland, the first Reader of Geology at the University of Oxford, collected more fossilized bones of Megalosaurus and became the first person to describe a non-avian dinosaur in a scientific journal. Clockwise from top left: Apex of a deltopectoral crest (a projection on which the, Fourth trochanter asymmetrical, with distal, lower, margin forming a steeper angle to the shaft, Exoccipitals (bones at the back of the skull) do not meet along the midline on the floor of the endocranial cavity, the inner space of the braincase, In the pelvis, the proximal articular surfaces of the, Distinct proximodistally oriented (vertical) ridge present on the posterior face of the distal end of the tibia (the rear surface of the lower end of the shinbone), Concave articular surface for the fibula of the calcaneum (the top surface of the calcaneum, where it touches the fibula, has a hollow profile), "Dilophosaur-grade neotheropods" (larger kink-snouted dinosaurs), "Nexus of basal coelurosaurs" (used by Tweet to denote well-known taxa with unstable positions at the base of Coelurosauria), The arguments and many of the images are also presented in, This page was last edited on 30 April 2023, at 14:21. Examples of this include the Morrison Formation of North America and Tendaguru Beds of Tanzania. [297][298] However, it would also have had longer-term consequences for the environment. [192] An embryo of the basal sauropodomorph Massospondylus was found without teeth, indicating that some parental care was required to feed the young dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are represented on every continent by both extant species (birds) and fossil remains. [32] Of particular note have been the fossils of the Jehol Biota, where a variety of theropods and early birds have been found, often with feathers of some type. [212][213] This has led to a significant body of work in reconstructing growth curves and modeling the evolution of growth rates across various dinosaur lineages,[214] which has suggested overall that dinosaurs grew faster than living reptiles. [122] Some sauropods also evolved tooth batteries, best exemplified by the rebbachisaurid Nigersaurus. Under phylogenetic nomenclature, dinosaurs are usually defined as the group consisting of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of Triceratops and modern birds (Neornithes), and all its descendants. The 'Age of Dinosaurs' (the Mesozoic Era) included three consecutive geologic time periods (the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods). The Chinese considered them to be dragon bones and documented them as such. The terrestrial habitats were occupied by various types of archosauromorphs and therapsids, like cynodonts and rhynchosaurs. [270] Alongside dinosaurs, many other groups of animals became extinct: pterosaurs, marine reptiles such as mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, several groups of mammals, ammonites (nautilus-like mollusks), rudists (reef-building bivalves), and various groups of marine plankton. But they sure did! The Flaws: The laws of physics and gravity prevents the existence of creatures as massive as dinosaurs. Other groups of animals were restricted in size and niches; mammals, for example, rarely exceeded the size of a domestic cat, and were generally rodent-sized carnivores of small prey. This was one of the seminal results that led to the dinosaur renaissance. [202] An emerging consensus among researchers is that, while different lineages of dinosaurs would have had different metabolisms, most of them had higher metabolic rates than other reptiles but lower than living birds and mammals,[203] which is termed mesothermy by some. [14][248] Feather-like structures known as pycnofibres have also been found in pterosaurs. Images of Earth from Space are Fake Sep. 07, 2022. [66] Asian localities have produced the most complete theropod specimens,[68] while North American localities have produced the most complete sauropodomorph specimens. [222][263], Fossils of the troodonts Mei and Sinornithoides demonstrate that some dinosaurs slept with their heads tucked under their arms. Dinosaurs Never Existed. Saurischia includes those taxa sharing a more recent common ancestor with birds than with Ornithischia, while Ornithischia includes all taxa sharing a more recent common ancestor with Triceratops than with Saurischia. The class "Dinosauria" was originally defined by "Sir" Richard Owen of the Royal Society, and Superintendent of the British Museum Natural History Department in 1842. Evolution and Dinosaurs Debunked; Wiki Sections (0) FrontPage (1) Earth (2) Space (3) Science (4) History (5) Society (6) Disinformation Recent Changes. [327], By human standards, dinosaurs were creatures of fantastic appearance and often enormous size. The other groups mentioned are, like dinosaurs and pterosaurs, members of Sauropsida (the reptile and bird clade), except Dimetrodon (which is a synapsid). Evidence for true, vaned feathers similar to the flight feathers of modern birds has been found only in the theropod subgroup Maniraptora, which includes oviraptorosaurs, troodontids, dromaeosaurids, and birds. I was thinking I read a lot of right wing non sense on here from the earth is flat, dinosaurs never existed , we were put here by an alien species LOL Proof that evolution is true .. Nutrients provide our body with various types of fuel that create different processes by Show more. For example, studies of the forces exerted by muscles and gravity on dinosaurs' skeletal structure have investigated how fast dinosaurs could run,[135] whether diplodocids could create sonic booms via whip-like tail snapping,[176] and whether sauropods could float. [11] Both definitions result in the same set of animals being defined as dinosaurs: "Dinosauria = Ornithischia + Saurischia". The rock unit in which the bone was discovered has been dated to the early Paleocene epoch, approximately 64.8 million years ago. [53][55] Though the taxonomic name has often been interpreted as a reference to dinosaurs' teeth, claws, and other fearsome characteristics, Owen intended it also to evoke their size and majesty. Different dinosaur species lived during each of these three periods. [234], The size and shape of the brain can be partly reconstructed based on the surrounding bones. [83] This has enabled multiple full-body reconstructions of dinosaur colouration, such as for Sinosauropteryx[84] and Psittacosaurus[85] by Jakob Vinther and colleagues, and similar techniques have also been extended to dinosaur fossils from other localities. [178] Other researchers have countered that vocalizations also exist in turtles, the closest relatives of archosaurs, suggesting that the trait is ancestral to their lineage. [108] Eoraptor's likely resemblance to the common ancestor of all dinosaurs suggests that the first dinosaurs would have been small, bipedal predators. Dinosaurs went extinct before early humans or even neanderthals. Many dinosaurs were quite small, some measuring about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in length. Theropods were also radiating as herbivores or omnivores, with therizinosaurians and ornithomimosaurians becoming common. Certain fundamentalist Christians believe the Earth is ~5,000 years old so dinosaurs never existed (because they couldn't fit on the Ark) and the bones are actually from other, more familiar animals. [161] Other mass-death sites have been discovered subsequently. [273] The relatively large size of most dinosaurs and the low diversity of small-bodied dinosaur species at the end of the Cretaceous may have contributed to their extinction;[274] the extinction of the bird lineages that did not survive may also have been caused by a dependence on forest habitats or a lack of adaptations to eating seeds for survival. That said, dinosaurs would have some advantages over mammal megafauna that would probably help them avoid being wiped out quite so easily. While modern birds have only one functional oviduct and lay one egg at a time, more primitive birds and dinosaurs had two oviducts, like crocodiles. Off Topic Discussion Life, The Universe, and Politics Discussion Proof that dinosaurs never existed! Paleontologist Othniel Marsh "first found the back end of one of the long-necked sauropods and he named it Apatosaurus," Dr. Horner tells us. [69][70] Reference books summarizing the state of dinosaur research, such as David B. Weishampel and colleagues' The Dinosauria, made knowledge more accessible[71] and spurred further interest in dinosaur research. Across theropods, sauropodomorphs, and ornithischians, the number of named genera began to increase exponentially in the 1990s.