Category Zoology

WHAT COLOUR WERE DINOSAURS?

Dinosaur fossils, even when they show the skin of the animal, cannot show us what colour it was. Dinosaurs may have been green and brown in colour, camouflaging them amongst the leaves and rocks. It is also possible that some of them were very brightly coloured, just as some tropical lizards are today.

While skin impressions have been found — suggesting a pebbly or scaly texture — no real dinosaur skin remains. That means paleontologists don’t know for certain what color any of the dinosaurs were. They do have several theories, though. For example, many believe that dinosaur skin was probably drab shades of gray or green, allowing them to blend into their surrounding environments. This dull coloration would help them escape the detection of predators, enabling some to survive longer. Because large modern-day warm-blooded animals, such as elephants and rhinoceroses, tend to be dully colored, many scientists think that dinosaurs were, too.

But other paleontologists say the opposite is true — that dinosaurs’ skin could have been shades of purple, orange, red, even yellow with pink and blue spots! Rich and varied colors, they argue, might have helped dinosaurs to recognize one another and attract mates. Because research has shown that dinosaurs’closest living relatives — birds — can see in color, it is theorized that dinosaurs could, too. Scientists in this camp believe that color may well have been as important to these ancient creatures as it is to us.

Jack Horner, Curator of Paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies, Denver, Colorado, explains, “Some male dinosaurs may have had brightly colored crests to help them attract mates, but females probably did not. This color differentiation is also found in many modern-day birds.”

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DID DINOSAURS RULE THE EARTH?

During the 150 million years that they lived on Earth, dinosaurs certainly included the largest creatures to live on land and the fiercest hunters. But they were not the only animals to live successfully on Earth by any means. There were many species of insect and the earliest winged animals could be seen in the skies. The seas were teeming with fish and other sea-life. The first mammals were also thriving, ready to become the dominant creatures when the dinosaurs became extinct.

It is often said that dinosaurs ruled the earth. Movies such as Jurassic Park, the media, and educational books constantly promote the evolutionary claim that dinosaurs dominated planet earth for well over 100 million years. In the evolutionary paradigm, mankind had not yet evolved, and before the 65-million-year-old extinction mark, mammals were small rodents who steered clear of the ruling dinosaurs.

The prevailing evolutionary model argues that the coexistence of dinosaurs, large mammals, and humans is not supported for four reasons. First, dinosaur and human fossils have never been discovered together in the fossil record. Second, large mammals have never been discovered in ‘dinosaur’ rock. Third, dinosaurs could not have existed with larger mammals due to intense competition in similar environments. Fourth, dinosaurs would have overrun human civilization due to their monolithic size and belligerence. However, these arguments do not stand up to closer scrutiny and the weight of the evidence provides far greater support to biblical creation.

The historical narrative of Genesis plainly records that God created all land animals and human beings on the sixth day of creation about 6,000 years ago. According to the Bible, dinosaurs, mammals, and humans have coexisted from the beginning of creation. This is in direct contradiction to the evolutionary model of earth history. And although the idea of dinosaurs and human beings living at the same time is ridiculed as illogical and unscientific, a more open-minded approach reveals a different story. Circumstantial evidence in the fossil record, literary and artistic accounts in human civilization, and observational examples in present-day ecological habitats lend a high degree of credibility to the biblical account.

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WHAT IS EVOLUTION?

Living things inherit characteristics from the generations that have gone before, but each individual is slightly different. Over many generations, the differences that are more successful survive, so that the species gradually adapts. In time, these changes, called evolution, can lead to major adaptations and even new species. All living things have evolved from the simple organisms that began to grow in the Earth’s waters. Many of these, such as the dinosaurs, have since become extinct, although they may have lived successfully on Earth for millions of years.

The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it survive and have more offspring. 

Evolution by natural selection is one of the best substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.

The theory has two main points, said Brian Richmond, curator of human origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. “All life on Earth is connected and related to each other,” and this diversity of life is a product of “modifications of populations by natural selection, where some traits were favored in and environment over others,” he said.

More simply put, the theory can be described as “descent with modification,” said Briana Pobiner, an anthropologist and educator at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., who specializes in the study of human origins.

The theory is sometimes described as “survival of the fittest,” but that can be misleading, Pobiner said. Here, “fitness” refers not to an organism’s strength or athletic ability, but rather the ability to survive and reproduce.

For example, a study on human evolution on 1,900 students, published online in the journal Personality and Individual Differences in October 2017 found that many people may have trouble finding a mate because of rapidly changing social technological advances that are evolving faster than humans. “Nearly 1 in 2 individuals faces considerable difficulties in the domain of mating,” said lead study author Menelaos Apostolou, an associate professor of social sciences at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus. “In most cases, these difficulties are not due to something wrong or broken, but due to people living in an environment which is very different from the environment they evolved to function in.” 

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WHEN WERE FOSSILS DISCOVERED?

Ever since human beings first lived on Earth they have been finding fossilized remains. But it was really only in the nineteenth century that scientific study of the fossils took place. Until then, people believed that the fossils came from dragons, giants or even unicorns!

Thanks to modern science, we know a lot about the dinosaurs that used to roam Earth. How do scientists know so much? It’s not like they can observe them in the wild like they do with modern animals. Instead, they rely upon what dinosaurs left behind. No, not their diaries! Scientists study their fossilized bones and, sometimes, other bodily material.

No one knows when the first dinosaur bone was found. Ancient peoples most likely uncovered fossils of dinosaur bones from time to time, but they had no idea what they had found. Ancient Chinese writings from over 2,000 years ago reference “dragon” bones, which many experts today believe had to be dinosaur fossils.

Even early scientists weren’t sure about the fossils they found. For example, in 1676, Reverend Robert Plot, a curator of an English museum, discovered a large thigh bone in England. He believed it belonged to ancient species of human “giants.” Although the specimen disappeared eventually, drawings of it remain. Based upon those drawings, modern scientists believe it was probably from a dinosaur known as “Megalosaurus.”

Megalosaurus is believed to be the first dinosaur ever described scientifically. British fossil hunter William Buckland found some fossils in 1819, and he eventually described them and named them in 1824. Like scientists before him, Buckland thought the fossils belonged to an ancient, larger version of a modern reptile.

As of that time, the word “dinosaur” still had not been invented yet, and dinosaurs hadn’t yet been recognized as distinct creatures that were significantly different than modern reptiles. All that changed when British scientist Richard Owen came along.

In late 1841 or early 1842, Owen viewed the fossil collection of William Devonshire Saul. He was intrigued by a fossilized chunk of spine, which was thought to belong to an ancient reptile similar to an iguana that had been called “Iguanodon.”

Owen began comparing the fossils he saw and, within a few months, came to two critical conclusions: (1) that the fossils were from similar creatures; and (2) these were creatures unlike anything on Earth today. He coined the term “dinosaurs,” which means “terrible lizards.”

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HOW ARE PREHISTORIC TIMES DESCRIBED?

The periods when the Earth was forming and early kinds of life were developing have been given names. There is also a short way of saying “55 million years ago”: 55mya.

Prehistory is the time before people began to write. The word comes from the Ancient Greek words (pre = “before”) and history. Paul Tournal first used the French word Prehistorique. He found things made by humans more than ten thousand years ago in some caves in France. The word was first used in France around 1830 to talk about the time before writing. Daniel Wilson used it in English in 1851.

The term is mostly used for the period from 12,000 BC – 3000 BC, roughly speaking, the Neolithic. Sometimes the term “prehistoric” is used for much older periods, but scientists have more accurate terms for those more ancient times.

Less is known about prehistoric people because there are no written records (history) for us to study. Finding out about pre-history is done by archeology. This means studying things like tools, bones, buildings and cave drawings. Pre-history ends at different times in different places when people began to write.

In the more ancient Stone Age pre-history, people lived in tribes and lived in caves or tents made from animal skin. They had simple tools made from wood and bones, and cutting tools from stone such as flint, which they used to hunt and to make simple things. They made fire and used it for cooking and to stay warm. They made clothing out of animal skins, and later by weaving. Society started when people began doing specialized jobs. This is called the division of labour. The divisions of labor made people depend on one another and led to more complex civilizations.

Some important sciences that are used to find out more about pre-history are palaeontology, astronomy, biology, geology, anthropology, and archaeology. Archaeologists study things left over from prehistory to try to understand what was happening. Anthropologists study the traces of human behavior to learn what people were doing and why.

After people started to record events, first by drawing symbols (called pictographs) and then by writing, it became much easier to tell what happened, and history started. These records can tell us the names of leaders (such as Kings and Queens), important events like floods and wars, and the things people did in their daily lives. The time when prehistory ended and history started is different in different places, depending on when people began to write and if their records were kept safe or lost so they could be found later on. In places like Mesopotamia, China, and Ancient Egypt, things were recorded from very early times (around 3200 BC in Ancient Egypt) and these records can be looked at and studied. In New Guinea, the end of prehistory came much later, around 1900.

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HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT PREHISTORY?

          Almost everything that we know about the living things on Earth before humans evolved has been learnt from fossils. Fossils are the remains of dead animals and plants that have been turned to stone over millions of years.

          Because, by definition, there are no written records from prehistoric times, much of the information we know about the time period is informed by the fields of paleontology and archeology—the study of ancient life through fossils and the study of the material left behind by ancient peoples, including the cave painting of Lascaux, and such constructions as Stonehenge in southern England and the huge earthworks at Silbury Hill. There is much that is still unknown about the purpose of these “artifacts,” but the caves show an early ability to create art while Stonehenge demonstrates knowledge of astronomy. It is also possible that religious beliefs and practices were associated with these prehistoric monuments, perhaps involving the winter and spring Equinoxes.

          Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of chronology but in the way it deals with the activities of archaeological cultures rather than named nations or individuals. Restricted to material remains rather than written records (and indeed only those remains that have survived), prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, the cultural terms used by prehistorians, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern, arbitrary labels, the precise definition of which are often subject to discussion and argument. Prehistory thus ends when we are able to name individual actors in history, such as Snofru, founder of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, whose reign began circa 2620 B.C.E.

          The date marking the end of prehistory, that is the date when written historical records become a useful academic resource, varies from region to region. In Egypt it is generally accepted that prehistory ended around 3500 B.C.E. whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently, at around 1900 C.E. The earliest historical document is said to be the Egyptian Narmer Palette, dated 3200 B.C.E.

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