Unofficial Poll question for additional dinosaurs for the former MOS series

[Dinoguy2]

Poorly known as in fragmentary remains, not public awarness

Yeah, poorly known as in we don't really know anything about it or what it looked like, other than is was different in some way from everything else. Always thought that was a confusing term. Maybe we should say poorly understood or just fragmentary.

I know we've beat this topic to death, but I just thought I'd chime in. The words "fragmentary" or even "poorly understood" can be highly relative depending on the type of prehistoric beast you're talking about. Take a sauropod, for example. If you have most of the body, but no head, you've got a decent idea of what the creature looked like since the biggest differences between most sauropods are post-cranial.
If, conversely, you have a ceratopsian skull but no body, you've also got a very good idea of what that creature looked like, since most ceratopsians were virtually identical post-cranially (to the point were even professionals have trouble telling headless specimens apart), and all the real variability is present in the shape of the skull.

True, though sauropods might not be the best example since their skulls are very distinctive, we just have so few of them we have to make due with post cranial features. The discovery of North American brachiosaurus skull helped convince people Giraffatitan was distinct, for example. We still don't know what Brontosaurus skull looked like. Maybe it looked like Apatosaurus, maybe not. I'd say Apatosaurus is therefore better understood than Brontosaurus. But yeah, I'd save fragmentary for things which are known from various bits and scraps and significant amount of the body form has to be filled in by bracketing scraps. Like Xenoposeidon or Dryptosaurus. Yeah, Dryptosaurus could work as a figure if you fill in the details from Appalachiosaurus or Eotyrannus, but then why not just make those figures instead of "generic basal tyrannosaur"?

[loru1588]

If it doesn't have the majority of the skull I probably won't sculpt it. Too much speculation in my eyes. But, that's just me!

[Takama]

So an animal like Elaphrosaurus will not be considered?  its known from an almost complete skeleton without a skull.

Because of this, you wont sculpt it. I can understand, as its a Mysterious Theropod.

But you will not Sculpt a Brontosaurus due to its lack of Skull?

[Yutyrannus]

Poorly known as in fragmentary remains, not public awarness

Yes, Saichania is only known from one skull.

[Takama]

I thoght it was known from post cranial remains, and theirs evidence of Armour on its legs

[Yutyrannus]

I thoght it was known from post cranial remains, and theirs evidence of Armour on its legs

Those remains were recently referred to Pinacosaurus sp.

[Takama]

Well thats news to me.   In that case. i change my vote for Pinacosaurus

[Yutyrannus]

Yeah, I only found out about that recently as well.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

So an animal like Elaphrosaurus will not be considered?  its known from an almost complete skeleton without a skull.

Because of this, you wont sculpt it. I can understand, as its a Mysterious Theropod.

But you will not Sculpt a Brontosaurus due to its lack of Skull?

Elaphrosaurus's skull potentially has HUGE ramifications for how to restore it. It seems to be of generally ceratosaurian affinity, and as we all know, many if not most ceratosaurs (including abelisaurs) had elaborate crests and horns (though, as a more basal member of the group, it may not have had any at all!). In addition, comparison with its presumed closest cousin, Limusaurus, as led some to suggest the two might be members of a hitherto unknown clade of herbivorous theropods. So, as you can see, the lack of a head, despite good post-cranial remains, creates a lot of ambiguity for an artist.

Brontosaurus, by contrast, likely lived and looked a lot like Apatosaurus. In all likelihood, its skull differs from Apatosaurus no more so than Dicraeosaurus' skull does from Amargasaurus. This is what I meant when I said that skulls don't change the appearance of a sauropod too much. As long as you know generally what type of sauropod it is, you can generally get pretty close to what the skull looked like without actually having it. To directly answer an earlier comment, yes, there are differences between Giraffatitan, Brachiosaurus, and Europasaurus, but they all have that general high crested brachiosaur shape.

[Dinoguy2]

So an animal like Elaphrosaurus will not be considered?  its known from an almost complete skeleton without a skull.

Because of this, you wont sculpt it. I can understand, as its a Mysterious Theropod.

But you will not Sculpt a Brontosaurus due to its lack of Skull?

Elaphrosaurus's skull potentially has HUGE ramifications for how to restore it. It seems to be of generally ceratosaurian affinity, and as we all know, many if not most ceratosaurs (including abelisaurs) had elaborate crests and horns (though, as a more basal member of the group, it may not have had any at all!). In addition, comparison with its presumed closest cousin, Limusaurus, as led some to suggest the two might be members of a hitherto unknown clade of herbivorous theropods. So, as you can see, the lack of a head, despite good post-cranial remains, creates a lot of ambiguity for an artist.

Brontosaurus, by contrast, likely lived and looked a lot like Apatosaurus. In all likelihood, its skull differs from Apatosaurus no more so than Dicraeosaurus' skull does from Amargasaurus. This is what I meant when I said that skulls don't change the appearance of a sauropod too much. As long as you know generally what type of sauropod it is, you can generally get pretty close to what the skull looked like without actually having it. To directly answer an earlier comment, yes, there are differences between Giraffatitan, Brachiosaurus, and Europasaurus, but they all have that general high crested brachiosaur shape.

With a 1:40 scale sauropod, the skull is a pretty minor detail anyway!

Also note that according to the same paper that brought back Brontosaurus, Diplodocus also has no skull. All the former "Diplodocus" specimens with skulls belong to different species. There's an isolated skull referred to Diplodocus but without more bones or another identical skull with a skeleton, it's impossible to know if it belongs to Diplodocus or not.

Again, most of these skulls differ in with, having a square or narrow snout, etc., but otherwise would look pretty similar when covered in soft tissue. Though the same goes for small theropod skulls, especially with mouth closed.

[John]

So an animal like Elaphrosaurus will not be considered?  its known from an almost complete skeleton without a skull.

Because of this, you wont sculpt it. I can understand, as its a Mysterious Theropod.

But you will not Sculpt a Brontosaurus due to its lack of Skull?

Elaphrosaurus's skull potentially has HUGE ramifications for how to restore it. It seems to be of generally ceratosaurian affinity, and as we all know, many if not most ceratosaurs (including abelisaurs) had elaborate crests and horns (though, as a more basal member of the group, it may not have had any at all!). In addition, comparison with its presumed closest cousin, Limusaurus, as led some to suggest the two might be members of a hitherto unknown clade of herbivorous theropods. So, as you can see, the lack of a head, despite good post-cranial remains, creates a lot of ambiguity for an artist.

Brontosaurus, by contrast, likely lived and looked a lot like Apatosaurus. In all likelihood, its skull differs from Apatosaurus no more so than Dicraeosaurus' skull does from Amargasaurus. This is what I meant when I said that skulls don't change the appearance of a sauropod too much. As long as you know generally what type of sauropod it is, you can generally get pretty close to what the skull looked like without actually having it. To directly answer an earlier comment, yes, there are differences between Giraffatitan, Brachiosaurus, and Europasaurus, but they all have that general high crested brachiosaur shape.

With a 1:40 scale sauropod, the skull is a pretty minor detail anyway!

Also note that according to the same paper that brought back Brontosaurus, Diplodocus also has no skull. All the former "Diplodocus" specimens with skulls belong to different species. There's an isolated skull referred to Diplodocus but without more bones or another identical skull with a skeleton, it's impossible to know if it belongs to Diplodocus or not.

Again, most of these skulls differ in with, having a square or narrow snout, etc., but otherwise would look pretty similar when covered in soft tissue. Though the same goes for small theropod skulls, especially with mouth closed.

The most useful part of that paper is it's showing what specimens were found in association with what and just how complete they were.But I wonder just how many of these new genus and species named in it will end up sticking?

And as for the subject at hand:I would like to see anything that's extinct and prehistoric turn up in the line.

[Sim]

I know we've beat this topic to death, but I just thought I'd chime in. The words "fragmentary" or even "poorly understood" can be highly relative depending on the type of prehistoric beast you're talking about. Take a sauropod, for example. If you have most of the body, but no head, you've got a decent idea of what the creature looked like since the biggest differences between most sauropods are post-cranial.
If, conversely, you have a ceratopsian skull but no body, you've also got a very good idea of what that creature looked like, since most ceratopsians were virtually identical post-cranially (to the point were even professionals have trouble telling headless specimens apart), and all the real variability is present in the shape of the skull.

With sauropods, I think it's more a case of the skull appearance of many sauropods not being known so they're restored with a generic head based on a relative.  Europasaurus, Brachiosaurus and Giraffatitan are closely related to each other but all their skulls look different.  Same with Galeamopus and Kaatedocus.  And looking at the skulls of Camarasaurus, Shunosaurus, Apatosaurus, Dicraeosaurus and Nigersaurus, they're all very different! 

To me, it appears ceratopsians tend to have very similar bodies post-cranially but I don't know to what extent that's true.  A few months ago I think someone posted an image of a couple of ceratopsians seen from above and there was some clear differences in the width of their bodies.  In any case, if all that's known of a ceratopsian is it's skull, then it's known from very incomplete remains.

Brontosaurus, by contrast, likely lived and looked a lot like Apatosaurus. In all likelihood, its skull differs from Apatosaurus no more so than Dicraeosaurus' skull does from Amargasaurus. This is what I meant when I said that skulls don't change the appearance of a sauropod too much. As long as you know generally what type of sauropod it is, you can generally get pretty close to what the skull looked like without actually having it. To directly answer an earlier comment, yes, there are differences between Giraffatitan, Brachiosaurus, and Europasaurus, but they all have that general high crested brachiosaur shape.

Well, most of Amargasaurus's skull isn't known so it gets reconstructed after Dicraeosaurus's.  There's a diagram that shows this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amargasaurus  I agree it appears closely related sauropods have similar skulls, but I haven't seen any that are virtually identical.  Since the skulls of Brachiosaurus, Giraffatitan and Europasaurus are known, we know for sure that if one had been given the skull of one of the other two, it would result in inaccurate life restorations. This comparison of the skulls of Giraffatitan and Europasaurus shows this quite strikingly!:

[Dinoguy2]

I know we've beat this topic to death, but I just thought I'd chime in. The words "fragmentary" or even "poorly understood" can be highly relative depending on the type of prehistoric beast you're talking about. Take a sauropod, for example. If you have most of the body, but no head, you've got a decent idea of what the creature looked like since the biggest differences between most sauropods are post-cranial.
If, conversely, you have a ceratopsian skull but no body, you've also got a very good idea of what that creature looked like, since most ceratopsians were virtually identical post-cranially (to the point were even professionals have trouble telling headless specimens apart), and all the real variability is present in the shape of the skull.

With sauropods, I think it's more a case of the skull appearance of many sauropods not being known so they're restored with a generic head based on a relative.  Europasaurus, Brachiosaurus and Giraffatitan are closely related to each other but all their skulls look different.  Same with Galeamopus and Kaatedocus.  And looking at the skulls of Camarasaurus, Shunosaurus, Apatosaurus, Dicraeosaurus and Nigersaurus, they're all very different! 

To me, it appears ceratopsians tend to have very similar bodies post-cranially but I don't know to what extent that's true.  A few months ago I think someone posted an image of a couple of ceratopsians seen from above and there was some clear differences in the width of their bodies.  In any case, if all that's known of a ceratopsian is it's skull, then it's known from very incomplete remains.

Brontosaurus, by contrast, likely lived and looked a lot like Apatosaurus. In all likelihood, its skull differs from Apatosaurus no more so than Dicraeosaurus' skull does from Amargasaurus. This is what I meant when I said that skulls don't change the appearance of a sauropod too much. As long as you know generally what type of sauropod it is, you can generally get pretty close to what the skull looked like without actually having it. To directly answer an earlier comment, yes, there are differences between Giraffatitan, Brachiosaurus, and Europasaurus, but they all have that general high crested brachiosaur shape.

Well, most of Amargasaurus's skull isn't known so it gets reconstructed after Dicraeosaurus's.  There's a diagram that shows this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amargasaurus  I agree it appears closely related sauropods have similar skulls, but I haven't seen any that are virtually identical.  Since the skulls of Brachiosaurus, Giraffatitan and Europasaurus are known, we know for sure that if one had been given the skull of one of the other two, it would result in inaccurate life restorations. This comparison of the skulls of Giraffatitan and Europasaurus shows this quite strikingly!:

And don't forget another brachiosaurid known from a complete skull (and, rare for a sauropod, not much else): Abydosaurus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abydosaurus



Looks pretty different from Giraffatitan, Europasaurus, and Brachiosaurus, shown below for comparison.

[Lusotitan]

I know I'm probably a bit ate, but here are some that would be cool:

Mutaburrasaurus langdoni - 8m

Plateosaurus engelhardti - 9m

Cetiosaurus oxoniensis - 16m

Olorotitan arharensis - 12m

Megaraptor namunhuaiquii - 8m

Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis - 6m

Torvosaurus tanneri - 10m

Hadrosaurus foulkii - 10m

Torosaurus latus - 9m

Dicraeosaurus hansemanni - 12m

Sauropelta edwardsorum- 5m

Isisaurus colberti - 18m

another ornithopod other than gallimimus

Got a little chuckle at this a few pages back.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Well, sure, I didn't mean to imply that sauropod heads are indistinguishable. It's very easy to play "spot the difference", but my point was that as far as toy reconstructions go, it's easy enough to get a sauropod head generally correct if you know which family it belongs to. While Brachiosaurus, Giraffatitan, Europasaurus, and Abydosaurus all have clearly different skulls, they follow that general brachiosaur look (high nasal cavity with a bit of a muzzle in front) closely enough that one could very easily create an acceptable hypothetical skull for one of their headless relatives and not stray too far into overly speculative territory.

Obviously there are always surprises. Nigersaurus springs immediately to mind, but few realize that Saltasaurus also has an odd head (more diplodocid-like than your typical titanosaur). But that's what makes them surprises: they are exceptions to a general rule scientists and artists feel safe in following. That's the entire basis of comparative anatomy, after all, a science that constitutes a major part of paleontology.

[Dinoguy2]

Well, sure, I didn't mean to imply that sauropod heads are indistinguishable. It's very easy to play "spot the difference", but my point was that as far as toy reconstructions go, it's easy enough to get a sauropod head generally correct if you know which family it belongs to. While Brachiosaurus, Giraffatitan, Europasaurus, and Abydosaurus all have clearly different skulls, they follow that general brachiosaur look (high nasal cavity with a bit of a muzzle in front) closely enough that one could very easily create an acceptable hypothetical skull for one of their headless relatives and not stray too far into overly speculative territory.

Obviously there are always surprises. Nigersaurus springs immediately to mind, but few realize that Saltasaurus also has an odd head (more diplodocid-like than your typical titanosaur). But that's what makes them surprises: they are exceptions to a general rule scientists and artists feel safe in following. That's the entire basis of comparative anatomy, after all, a science that constitutes a major part of paleontology.

I agree with everything you say here, but I'd point out this also applies to theropods. All theropod heads look generally the same except some differences that are about on the level with sauropods, with occasional exceptions. Would we be safe giving Megalosaurus a Torvosaurus-like head? Reasonably, but theropods have shown they're capable of big surprises. As have sauropods, it's just there is a much smaller sample size. I bet if you compared the ratio of "normal" to "weirdo outlier" in sauropods and theropods they'd be pretty similar. What I'm suggesting is that sauropod heads seem more generic only because we know much less about them.

[Gwangi]

I think part of it has to do with what your eye is immediately drawn to, the key identifiable features. Theropod and ceratopsian heads are large and conspicuous and key identifiable features. You can look at a ceratopsian and say "that's a Centrosaurus, that's a Triceratops, that's a Nasutoceratops" by looking at the skull alone. With theropods you can still generally say "that's a Dilophosaurus, that's an Allosaurus, that's a Tyrannosaurus, that's a Torvosaurus" etc. etc. Sauropods on the other hand have small heads, and huge bodies. You generally identify a sauropod based on the shape and size of it's body. You can do this with the head too but it's not as obvious an identification feature especially to people not as well versed in paleontology. Personally, if you put a Giraffatitan and Brachiosaurus head in front of me I wouldn't be able to tell you which was which. I'm not that good. But based on body size and shape alone I know what a Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, Apatosaurus, Amaragasaurus, Saltasaurus, Shunosaurus and Brachiosaurus all look like. It's like birdwatching, or watching any animals and utilizing a field guide. There are key features that can immediately help you tell apart one animal from another, and then there are also more subtle features.

[Lusotitan]

But based on body size and shape alone I know what a Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, Apatosaurus, Amaragasaurus, Saltasaurus, Shonisaurus and Brachiosaurus all look like.

♩ One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong ♩

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

But based on body size and shape alone I know what a Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, Apatosaurus, Amaragasaurus, Saltasaurus, Shonisaurus and Brachiosaurus all look like.

♩ One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong ♩

Haha, maybe he meant Shunosaurus? But you make the point much more succinctly than I was able to, Gwangi! The eye is much more drawn to the head in theropods and ceratopsians, meaning the average joe identifies them based on their heads much more so than sauropods.

I agree with everything you say here, but I'd point out this also applies to theropods. All theropod heads look generally the same except some differences that are about on the level with sauropods, with occasional exceptions. Would we be safe giving Megalosaurus a Torvosaurus-like head? Reasonably, but theropods have shown they're capable of big surprises. As have sauropods, it's just there is a much smaller sample size. I bet if you compared the ratio of "normal" to "weirdo outlier" in sauropods and theropods they'd be pretty similar. What I'm suggesting is that sauropod heads seem more generic only because we know much less about them.

That's a good counterpoint, though. Sample size undoubtably affects perception much more than most people (including myself) often acknowledge.

[Gwangi]

But based on body size and shape alone I know what a Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, Apatosaurus, Amaragasaurus, Saltasaurus, Shonisaurus and Brachiosaurus all look like.

♩ One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong ♩

That's how I make sure people are actually reading what I write.  No, not really. Shunosaurus is what I meant. Hopefully this doesn't number my remaining days on the forum and you all send me off tarred and feathered.