Dinosaurs Day - August 2

It's Dinosaurs Day!

On this date in 1841 Richard Owen described 3 fossils as big freaking lizards: Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, Hylaeosaurus. Though he didn't use the term "dinosaur" at that meeting, a couple months later while finalizing his report he decided they were a new type of reptile he called "dinosaura" (basically "terrible reptile").

These days most people probably consider dinosaurs to be fascinating more than terrible, though the name isn't going to change. (Of course, if you lived next door to an Allosaurus or a Utahraptor pack, you might consider them terrible neighbors.)

Although they definitely descended from reptiles, today they're more closely linked to another large group of animals, the birds! Birds are now recognized as the last surviving descendants from a dinosaur lineage.

Today is a day to think about these extinct animals, large and small, herbivorous or carnivorous.

Photo by Frank Kroeger on Unsplash


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