- Fernando Duarte
- BBC World Service
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Image source, Getty Images
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Scientists’ efforts to debunk myths about dinosaurs are made more difficult by the inaccurate representation of dinosaurs in popular culture, including through the film Jurassic Park.
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Our knowledge of dinosaurs has come a long way since this species was first described in scientific literature in the 19th century.
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But until now, paleontologists are still trying to dispel myths about the species that were the earliest inhabitants of planet Earth.
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Dispelling the myth is made even more difficult by the inaccurate representation of dinosaurs in popular culture, including through the hugely successful Jurassic Park film, which was watched worldwide.
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The following are some of the lingering misconceptions about dinosaurs.
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Did the dinosaurs become extinct due to an asteroid impact?
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Several dinosaurs survived after an asteroid hit Earth about 66 million years ago.
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About 66 million years ago, an asteroid about 10 kilometers in diameter hit the earth directly. The impact left a large crater buried under Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, and caused a mass extinction.
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However, scientists say “only” 75% of the animals on earth died. Some dinosaurs were among the survivors.
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“Even though many dinosaurs died when the asteroid hit, a group of super small, feathered dinosaurs still survived and we still see them today,” paleontologist at London’s Natural History Museum (NHM), Professor Paul Barrett, told the BBC.
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Image source, Getty Images
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Bird dinosaurs, which evolved into birds, survived the devastating asteroid impact that wreaked havoc on Earth about 66 million years ago.
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“Birds are still directly related to dinosaurs.”
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“Birds are descendants of living dinosaurs. In terms of the number of bird species that exist today, there are actually more dinosaur species around us today than there were 66 million years ago.”
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Can you hide from the T-Rex by standing still?
Tyrannosaurus Rex (T-Rex) was the main star in the very successful first Jurassic Park film after its release in 1993.
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The film features many memorable scenes, in which the T-Rex terrorizes the protagonist’s human character.
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Image source, Getty Images
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The T-Rex has the best eyesight of any animal that has ever lived.
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However, the film depicts the T-Rex as an animal with poor eyesight, so it can only detect its prey when the prey moves.
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This trait exists in animals such as amphibians. According to Professor Barrett, dinosaurs did not have poor eyesight.
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“Dinosaurs tended to have much better visual acuity. A study conducted 15 years ago showed that T-Rex had the best eyesight of any animal that has ever lived.”
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“Standing still in front of a T-Rex is probably going to be one of the dumbest things you’ll ever do.”
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Can the T-Rex run faster than the speed of the vehicle?
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T-Rex can run, but not as fast as depicted in the movies.
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The film Jurrasic Park also features a scene where the T-Rex can run faster than a moving vehicle.
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Previously there were studies that estimated that this predator could run at speeds of up to 50 kilometers per hour. However, further research found the T-Rex’s running speed was slower, at around 20-29 kilometers per hour.
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“It’s also important to remember that the top speed you can achieve is different from a more stable pace so you can run longer,” said Dr Mariana Di Giacomo, a conservator at Yale University’s Peabody National History Museum.
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“marathon runners don’t run as fast as sprinters, and sprint races are very short. It’s hard for our bodies to maintain a top speed for longer periods of time.”
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“Maybe the T-Rex can run fast for short sprints, but it won’t be enough to outrun an oncoming car,” he added.
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Can we clone dinosaurs?
Image source, Getty Images
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There are a number of practical obstacles that prevent scientists from cloning dinosaurs.
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The T-Rex disappeared from this world tens of millions of years before the appearance of humans. We’re also unlikely to see another T-Rex anytime soon. This goes against the main premise of Jurassic Park, where scientists insisted that dinosaurs could not be cloned.
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“As far as we know, DNA [dinosaurus] doesn’t last long,” Professor Barrett explained.
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“The oldest DNA we know of in fossil history is about two million years old, and that DNA is fragments of bacteria, soil, fungi, and the like.”
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According to Professor Barrett, the oldest animal genetic data available today comes from species that died 50,000 years ago.
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“We don’t have DNA from animals or plants that have become extinct unless they are from a closer era.”
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“So, I was quite skeptical about that one,” he continued.
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Dr Di Giacomo agrees with that opinion and says that scientific breakthroughs in dinosaur genetics do not mean success in terms of cloning.
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“The cloned species so far away from us in geological time is very complex, because there are too many unknown variables.”
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In addition, he also touched on potential ethical issues in this regard:
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“Films like Jurassic Park and Jurassic World show us all the reasons not to do it, most of which focus on humans suffering the consequences.
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“But there’s been little discussion about how cruel it was to bring dinosaurs into a world different from the era they lived in.”
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Are dinosaurs stupid creatures?
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Troodon, a smaller flesh-eating dinosaur, had good intelligence.
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According to Dr Di Giacomo, advances in technology have given scientists more resources to understand how dinosaurs lived and behaved.
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“Not all dinosaurs were super intelligent and not all dinosaurs weren’t intelligent.”
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“The intelligence they have is in accordance with the needs of the time they live.”
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Professor Barrett added that some dinosaurs were “actually quite smart”, one of which was a smaller meat-eating dinosaur.
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“Some of them live at night to avoid competition with larger animals. It takes more intelligence to cope with situations like this, as well as better senses of hearing, sight and smell.”
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Are parent dinosaurs bad for their offspring?
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The plant -eating dinosaur, which is believed to have lived 77 million years ago, is named Maiasaura or “good mother”.
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For more than a century, dinosaurs were regarded as brutal loners who did not take care of their young. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were discoveries that revealed the more complex social behavior of dinosaurs.
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The plant-eating dinosaur, believed to have lived 77 million years ago, was even named Maiasaura. Maiasaura means “good mother” which comes from Greek and Latin.
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A more recent study, published in the journal Scientific Reports in October, shows that dinosaurs that lived 193 million years ago were already living in groups and guarding their young.
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“We already have a better understanding of dinosaurs and know that some dinosaurs were good parents,” Professor Barrett said.
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“Though, there were other dinosaurs that weren’t so.”
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Dr Di Giacomo gave an example of other dinosaurs that tended to “take care of themselves”.
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“There are other species that have been identified as having parental traits, and that includes predators like Allosaurus,” he said.
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“In fact, there was a dinosaur Citipati osmolskae which was given the nickname “Big Mama” because it was found in the position of incubating its eggs.”
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