I’m sure that most of you have seen Jurassic World by this point, or if you haven’t, you’re at least planning to. It’s a lot of fun and the dinosaurs are awesome but I personally believe that they dropped the ball a little in showing the same old pop culture dinosaurs. Yes, Triceratops, Velociraptor and T. rex are cool but there are many lesser-known dinosaurs who are equally cool. Let me give you a few examples:
Spinosaurus (Yes, I know it was in Jurassic Park 3 but Spinosaurus deserves a better movie)
T-rex is big and tough. But it wasn’t actually the biggest carnivorous dinosaur we know of. That honour belongs to Spinosaurus, which may have been as much as 18 metres long. It didn’t look much like a T. rex – it had a long, narrow head and a giant sail on its back. Current research suggests that it was probably a piscivore (it ate fish) and may have been specially adapted to spend most of its time in the water.
Amargasaurus
Apatosaurus is a very cool sauropod but for my money, Amargasaurus is much wilder looking. Amargasaurus lived during the early Cretaceous and was about 10m long. The cool thing about Amargasaurus is the twin rows of spikes along its back, some as tall as 50cm. They may have been merely spikes; they may also have supported a frill or even a massive pair of sails.
Troodon
There’s a reason Troodon was chosen as the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum’s logo. It’s a very exciting little dinosaur. Troodon was about 2m long and yes, it probably had feathers. Why is Troodon special? Its brain was quite large in comparison to its body, meaning that it was probably one of the most intelligent dinosaurs. Imagine what Chris Pratt could have done with a team of Troodon instead!
Quetzalcoatlus
I’m cheating a little with this one – Quetzalcoatlus was a pterosaur, not a dinosaur. Quetzalcoatlus is one of the largest flying animals to have ever lived. It was about the size of a giraffe! Still not impressed? Some researchers have suggested that it could fly for 10 days at a time. I actually totally understand why the moviemakers left this one out. Who cares about Indominus rex when you’ve got that monster flying around?
Written by Rowena McGowan, Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum Intern
References:
[Mehling, C., 2009 (Ed.), Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals. London, UK: Amber Books Ltd.]