Questions tagged [dinosaurs]
For questions that have to do with dinosaurs, excluding their living avian descendants.
105
questions
2
votes
2answers
60 views
How big animals could survive on an island the size of Madagascar
I've been making a story about an lost world island, roughly the size of Madagascar, (593.40 km²). I have currently estimated that I could have herbivorous animals up to 3 tons in weight (sauropods) , ...
5
votes
4answers
749 views
is it possible in a given world to ride a triceratops and so how would it work?
I've been thinking about this world that's been in my mind and one of the things in it are drake knights which are warriors who raised and ride domesticate breed of triceratops like the war elephants ...
9
votes
5answers
243 views
A plausible scientific explanation for Late Cretaceous dinosaurs DNA to be preserved, and viable enough to be cloned (or closest recreation)
Worldbuilding, thank you for your time. I came to this site to ask a few questions and get advice, if possible, on a project I'm working on.
I have always been a fan Turok, Dino Crissis, Cage of Eden, ...
6
votes
4answers
224 views
How Would A Velociraptor Wear Clothes?
Technically the name of this question is a bit of a misnomer, as I'm not talking about just Velociraptor mongoliensis, but any dromaeosaur (or dromaeosaur-shaped creature I suppose). How would, ...
1
vote
1answer
132 views
Why a dromaeosaurid would evolve to lose its legs? (to become an Quetzalcoatl/Amphithere)
An amphithere is a dragon from some European mythologies is described as a feathered snake, long body and wings with feathers, so basically can be stretchily compared with some Quetzalcoatl ...
25
votes
6answers
7k views
Effect of Modern Firearms on Dinosaurs
Man vs Dinosaur. It is a relatively common trope in various Sci fi settings, most famously done in Jurassic Park. These depictions have always fascinated me. I have always been bothered, however, by ...
6
votes
3answers
361 views
How long should an egg-laying species of human size and intelligence gestate and incubate its eggs?
In my fantasy world I have a species of reptilian humanoids.
Their body mass, lifespan and overall intelligence is about the same as humans. This probably means similarly sized brains.
They are NOT ...
-2
votes
1answer
128 views
Trying to make cavemen and dinosaur battle [closed]
I'm trying to make a world with dinosaurs but with cavemen to fight them.
Which prehistoric weapons or ways to hunt are capable to slay the beast, like T-Rex
The most complete specimen measures up to ...
19
votes
2answers
3k views
If the Roman Empire in the Year 90 AD Found a Living Tyrannosaurus Rex, What Creature in Their Mythology Would They Most Likely Mistake It For?
I'm writing a story where a group of mischievous aliens teleport iconic creatures to inappropriate time periods. (Dimetrodons in colonial Germany, Pterodactyls in the medieval Ottoman Empire, ...
-2
votes
2answers
117 views
Quadrupedal super predators [closed]
Could a quadrupedal carnivore reach similar sizes to that of large theropods. I know crocodilians technically count, but they're very low to the ground and have sprawled out limbs, so could a ...
2
votes
1answer
106 views
A SWAT van with Raptors attacking it? [closed]
I want to know if a SWAT Lenco BearCat van that got teleported to a different world where a group of a few dozen raptors starts attacking the van. Would the van be able to survive about eight hours ...
4
votes
2answers
240 views
How could exist and how be the lifestyle of a living raft biome?
Raft biome consists of a trunk or a group of plants that float in the sea and cant transports little animals like reptiles, birds, bugs or rodents, with this method many species can travel large ...
4
votes
1answer
134 views
What are the limits of leathery wings?
I want to experiment with alternate realities where pterosaurs continued to evolve or where Ambopteryx was more of a success, but there's a problem. What can't leathery wings do? Are they waterproof? ...
39
votes
24answers
8k views
If dinosaurs had a civilization, how primitive must it have been to leave no trace in the present?
I am thinking of, yes, a simple story with intelligent dinosaurs, but I am not interested (And I sincerely prefer) that they are not sufficiently advanced in my history to be comparable to modern ...
29
votes
7answers
3k views
Would it be possible to mount a working minigun onto the saddle of a tyrannosaurid dinosaur?
My modern setting has these humanoids called the Degenerates whose culture draws inspiration from those of Indo-Iranian steppe nomads like the Scythians, Sarmatians and Parthians who fight as mounted ...
1
vote
0answers
71 views
What if stegasaurs continued to evolve? [closed]
I know it's unlikely due to ankylosaurs being so successful, but this is an avenue of speculative evolution not yet explored. So let's say that the KT extinction didn't occur and Cretaceous stegosaurs ...
4
votes
1answer
141 views
Could a stegosaur-like creature become bipedal?
We think stegosaurs could go on their hind legs to get at treetops. Could something like this evolve into a biped? In addition, can you think of other scenarios for bipeds to evolve?
-2
votes
1answer
69 views
Hypothetical selective breeding scenario question two?
Could one using selective breeding and artificial induced selective pressures breed a tree climbing Anole lizard to become something that resembles a gliding pterosaur from the Mid Triassic or early ...
1
vote
2answers
164 views
What would mammalian dinosaurs look like? [closed]
Here's a crazy idea: What if there were mammals that were designed similarly to dinosaurs? Similar proportions, similar accessories, maybe even similar size...
I was thinking of species to add to my ...
4
votes
3answers
172 views
Human vs Dinosaur conflict in post apocalyptic world [closed]
500 years post apocalypse, human society is based on small settlements surrounded by electric fences. This is because, during this time dinosaurs have returned to roam the earth.
These dinosaurs are ...
8
votes
6answers
454 views
Triceratops cart load
I'm designing a world where people and dinosaurs exist at the same time. I'm making it realistic (in the sense that it is more like Jurassic Park and not like The Flintstones).
Supposing you could ...
8
votes
1answer
304 views
How CAN a Wyvern be a Scansoriopterygid Dinosaur?
It's become a popular speculative evolution trope for the likeliest candidate of the mythological "wyvern" to be a Cenozoic family--if not superfamily--of scansoriopterygid dinosaur.
Now the first ...
2
votes
3answers
418 views
How Would Victorian-Era Firearms Fare Against Dinosaurs?
In a world that takes place during the Victorian era (1837-1901), how effective would period-accurate firearms be against something similar to a dinosaur? As a brief aside, I will accept weaponry from ...
8
votes
6answers
2k views
How to trap and kill a T-Rex-like creature?
The story: in a fantasy iron age world, a T-Rex-like animal (actually more like the size of allosaurus) has emerged from the forest and started killing people. The animal always retreats to the forest ...
0
votes
1answer
195 views
How to prove that “dragons“ spit fire?
Let's imagine there actually were dragons (dinosaurs) that spit fire.
How could that be actually proven if you've lived in a day and age like today, where these kinds of creatures are actually ...
0
votes
2answers
78 views
Why dwarf designer dinosaurs? [closed]
Set in the mediate future new gene splicing is the new game in the market, we took over an island in the pacific ocean and set up a a natural habitat for the dinosaurs free of any kind of human ...
4
votes
3answers
2k views
How could a medieval melee weapon slice through ankylosaurus?
Set in the early 14th century A. D. the sudden appearance of dinosaurs wrecked havoc on the world, no one know why but everybody raced to come up with powerful theories except for a particular group ...
38
votes
8answers
9k views
How could pirates reasonably transport dinosaurs in captivity, some of them enormous, across oceans?
In my novel, there is money to made in the capturing and selling of 'exotic' animals from a distant, jungle-covered continent, though for various reasons (notably that it is illegal under Roman rule) ...
4
votes
7answers
289 views
Plausibility of Star Trek's Voth
In Star Trek Voyager, the Voth are an intelligent, humanoid species of descendants of dinosaurs (hadrosaurs).
Paleontologists estimate, that up around 99% of species, that ever lived, died out.
...
53
votes
3answers
11k views
Could dinosaurs breathe modern air?
During much of the Cretaceous period, oxygen levels were substantially higher than they are currently, with estimates indicating that around 30% of the atmosphere consisted of oxygen. Obviously, this ...
28
votes
18answers
9k views
How would a medieval village protect themselves against dinosaurs?
In this world, dinosaurs are wildlife that usually don't bother people, but people still want to make sure they're safe from the occasional man-eaters or gigantic herbivores that want to eat their ...
4
votes
6answers
228 views
Would separate species of sentient dinosaur cooperate?
I’m planning on writing another story as well, but I’m further into the concept of this one.
It takes place in a fictional prehistoric age that combines elements from the Jurassic, Cretaceous, ...
19
votes
7answers
4k views
How would mesoamericans fight dinosaurs?
In my book series, there is a planet called Aztlan. The Aztlanians are essentially based on a mix of Aztec, Maya, and Inca cultures, with hints of Olmec, Nazca, and Mapuche thrown in.
For example, ...
2
votes
1answer
101 views
What is the likeliness other planets could develop saurian life?
I’ve seen a few sci-fi concepts about humans traveling to another planet and discovering dinosaurs as the dominant species. They often look quite unique but share unique features to the Earth ...
6
votes
3answers
142 views
Recreating Dinosaurs (or at least doppelgangers)
In theory organisms derived from birds through genetic engineering could resemble theropod dinosaurs. So my question is what animals would serve as the basis for the other two groups of dinosaurs (...
2
votes
2answers
545 views
Consequences of a creature with exposed musculature
In the video game Dino Crisis 3, a recurring boss that the player fights called the Australis (a bio-engineered human-Tyrannosaurus Rex hybrid) that has skin exposing the muscles of its body. An in-...
6
votes
2answers
310 views
Will the Dinosaur Empire Still Stand Strong If Chicxulub Hit Earth at the End of the Jurassic?
66 million years ago, the dinosaur empire was in its death throes when its final nail in the coffin came hurtling down from the sky. A clump of rock the size of Mount Everest smashed into the Gulf of ...
0
votes
2answers
180 views
What could be a plausible scientific explanation for a man who can transform different parts of his body into different parts of reptiles?
Laws that must not be broken and/or worked around:
Conservation of energy
Conservation of mass
Square cube law
Thermodynamics
No FTL
Essentially, I'm trying to make a character with similar abilities ...
3
votes
2answers
247 views
How big could dinosaurs get with super strength and durability?
On this parallel earth all vertebrates received the ability to efficiently produce super strong materials from readily available minerals/nutrients in the mid Triassic.
The specifics of these ...
4
votes
1answer
83 views
Dinosaurian Gamma Diversity
Gamma diversity is defined as the entire species diversity of a landscape or region. Assuming we have a region of 100 square miles of temperate deciduous forest inhabited by cretaceous fauna. How many ...
3
votes
6answers
233 views
Could dinosaurs have been discovered during the age of discovery? [closed]
Could dinosaurs have been discovered on the Americas during the age of discovery?
Some things to take into account:
Assume they survived their extinction event
Assume they could survive on the ...
9
votes
4answers
3k views
Would a US marine teleported in the Cretaceous be able to survive a T-rex attack [closed]
A US marine fighting in the Middle East inadvertently falls in a hole that happens to be a time portal and is teleported in the Cretaceous era, 70 million years in the past.
Our Marine is equipped ...
16
votes
22answers
6k views
How could a plague that killed off the dinosaurs come back?
In my story, something pretty insane happens during the 3rd season.
The common conception was that an asteroid strike contributed to the extinction to dinosaurs, but unbeknownst to all it was not a ...
5
votes
12answers
7k views
How feasible is a man-portable firearm capable of incapacitating a large dinosaur with twentieth-century technology?
In the movie Jurassic World there is a scene where a specialised military response team engages the Indominus Rex, a genetically modified dinosaur said to be of comparable size to Tyrannosaurus Rex. ...
3
votes
3answers
348 views
What can power up an eco friendly Dino theme park?
My company has just taken over the North Sentinel Island to setup a Dino attraction, construction phase is in progress and we also managed to convince the local to move and settle somewhere else (by ...
31
votes
10answers
7k views
Would using thick glass wall be better than electric fence for my dino theme park?
My company has perfected its gene modifying technique.We can create life-sized hybrids of dinosaurs, with the exact appetite and behaviour as the original species (at least according to our advice ...
4
votes
1answer
153 views
How much land to keep a sauropod in captivity?
How large of an area in acres would a large sauropod (Apatosaurus) need to maintain itself while also not eating all of the vegetation within the area.
So basically how large of a forested area would ...
31
votes
8answers
4k views
Is it possible to film the meteorite impact that led to dinosaurs extinction? [closed]
A time traveler reporter team wants to film the meteorite impact that led to the extinction of dinosaurs. They are thinking to teleport somewhere on Earth surface 30 minutes before the impact and to ...
-1
votes
3answers
259 views
Are the petroleum deposits correlated to the dinosaurs extintion?
I am designing an alternate world where the meteorite that caused the massive dinosaurs extinction never hit Earth.
I am stuck in one point: If the massive deaths of the dinosaurs worldwide never ...
11
votes
1answer
654 views
Viability of Scansoriopterygid wyverns
Scansoriopterygidae was a family of theropod dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic, the most well-known member of which was Yi Qi. They are thought to have been arboreal insectivores, and ...
