Comments on: Which Dinosaur Would You Clone?

By: jacob

jacob — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:31:01 +0000

i want to be a gigantosaurus

By: Tracking Dinosaurs in New Jersey | Dinosaur Tracking

Tracking Dinosaurs in New Jersey | Dinosaur Tracking — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:09:42 +0000

[...] and gigantic mosasaurs prowled the near-shore waters, and the dinosaurs Hadrosaurus and Dryptosaurus inhabited the land not too far from the ancient beach. When these dinosaurs died, sometimes their [...]

By: Sean Craven

Sean Craven — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:00:03 +0000

Alan, your basic concept there is the exact opposite of my own thoughts — my first impulse is to satisfy my curiosity. If I discard that impulse, I’d be making my selection on the basis of, “What would be good at eating people?”

Actually, the Dryptosaur might be a good choice…

By: DS

DS — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:02:24 +0000

I was just about to comment exactly as Alan above, but I think I’d go with the genuine Velociraptor. I’d loved Deinonychus since I was a kid, then adored them in Jurassic Park. Soon after, I started obsessing over them in their real 2.5ft form. Small enough to be little real danger in a post-apocalyptic world sense, large enough and snappy enough to capture the public’s fear and imagination, and that awesome name.

Not to mention the awesome of seeing what kind of feathering they had all over.

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:15:04 +0000

Any of the small maniraptorans. Because we will never have an absolutely escape proof enclosure, and I’d much prefer to deal with an animal I greatly outmatch in combat.

By: Sean Craven

Sean Craven — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:32:56 +0000

Brian, I hadn’t even thought about that. Man. Land Of The Thunder Chickens — or would that be Geese, if they were herbivores?

Now that’s an extra-weird bestiary even by Mesozoic standards — and we’ll probably never find out about the really strange stuff.

I changed my mind — I want to clone one of the dinosaurs we’ll never find as a fossil…

By: Mo Hassan

Mo Hassan — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:17:06 +0000

I’ll go with Baryonyx walkeri. No particular reason, except that it was always one of my favourites since I was little. Other than that, a therizinosaur would be cool.

By: Brian Switek

Brian Switek — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:29:07 +0000

Oooh! Good choice, Sean!

What I am wondering is why there were extraordinarily large coelurosaurs running around Asia in the Cretaceous. There was Therizinosaurus, Deinocheirus, and Gigantoraptor; why did these theropods get to be so big? In the former two the only thing we have are the arms, but if these were secondarily herbivorous or omnivorous theropods I have to wonder if they were invading a niche left open by sauropods or other herbivorous browsers.

By: Sean Craven

Sean Craven — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:41:03 +0000

I didn’t even have to think about this one.

Deinocheirus, because that puppy has been driving me nuts for years.

Brian knows this already, but Deinocheirus is the name applied to a shoulder girdle and a pair of arms from Mongolia. Those arms are more than eight feet long…

I’ve read that they seem to be from an ostrich-mimic — but the mystery inherent in such a spectacular set of partial remains has has me itching with curiosity since I first read of them. I felt an overwhelming sense of relief when they found out about the nature of Therizinosaurus. I hope to feel the same thing about Deinocheirus some day.