This Is Why Dinosaurs Looked Nothing Like in Movies

Meet a distant relative of a velociraptor. Look at these big fangs: they could easily pierce the scaly armor of any other dinosaur. This dinosaur’s peculiar backbone let it move on four legs pretty fast... Wait a second. I guess I mixed it up; this is a skeleton of a regular mouse.
But hold on, don’t turn it off. Because the velociraptor I just showed you, has nothing to do with dinosaurs either. It’s a figment of Steven Spielberg’s imagination translated into reality by the Jurassic Park movie crew. So how did dinosaurs really look like?
Why were the first finds buried back? Why would scientists break dinosaurs' bones?
And who’s hiding from us the truth about dinosaurs?

[rhetiq]

Dinos in movies : Lizard like killing machines

Dinos irl : Still killing machines but looking more like giant roosters

[rebecca]

Wait a minute, I grew up in the 1980’s, and the dinosaurs that I learned about in school looked just like the ones in Jurassic Park. So the movie clearly wasn’t the first time dinosaurs were depicted as giant lizards.

[gobanito]

Featherless velociraptors and theropods in general shown in the Jurassic Park franchise was already explained by Dr. Wu in Jurassic World Dominion. He said he spliced Dino DNA with that of a monitor lizard. That explains their lizard-like appearance in the movie.

[trealbarz]

Some dinosaurs had scales like ankylosaurus. They discovered some of it’s fossilized skin which consists of big round scales. Not the back plates but the actual skin.

[steveoc]

A few corrections for this video. (There would be more if I could be bothered) (Also, I've made some edits to this comment to clarify some areas)

At 4:29, they show a silhouette of a dromeosaur when talking about the size of the Amphicoelias fragillimus vertebra (now called Maraapunisaurus). Straight after, they then show other images of theropod dinosaurs. Maraapunisaurus is a sauropod, or long-necked dinosaur. Showing a theropod is a weird editing choice and potentially misleading/confusing for the audience.

Creative commons scale charts are available on Wikimedia Commons, which you can freely use to show the audience the size estimates generated from this vertebra.

They also mention the length estimate of 60 meters, but the graphics show a line measuring height??


At 4:50, the presenter proclaims, ''most likely, Cope just made it up''. Whilst that is what some palaeontologists think, not all do. In fact, one palaeontologist even gave it a new genus name in 2018. It has been independently noticed that the vertebra looks like it belongs to a rebbachisaurid sauropod. Slightly better wording would be, ''some palaeontologists think that Cope made it up''. For the presenter to proclaim that Cope ''most likely... made it up'' is misleading and doesn't reflect the science.


At 5:25, when talking about the name 'Jurassic Park', the presenter says, ''all of the dinosaurs showed in the movie actually lived in the Cretaceous''; they then cut to a clip of Brachiosaurus, a dinosaur that lived in the Jurassic Period. Dilophosaurus is also from the Jurassic. It would be better to say, ''only two out of the seven dinosaurs shown in the movie lived in the Jurassic''


At 6:10, ''And that's why they were turned into giant toothy reptiles''.
At 6:12, ''and the truth is, not all dinosaurs were reptiles''.
At 8:21, ''Most likely Velociraptors were closer to birds than reptiles''.

Edited: There seems to be some confusion around the word reptile in this video, leading to nonsensical statements.

Admittedly, this is tricky to discuss because there are two words to consider here, 'Reptile', and 'Reptilia'.

'Reptile' is a more general word that can have slightly varying meanings. However, many definitions of 'reptile' refer to anything cold-blooded and scaly, like lizards and crocs; this is not an evolutionary definition.

'Reptilia', on the other hand, is the name of a scientifically defined evolutionary group. Generally speaking, the word 'reptile' can substitute for 'reptilia'. However, birds complicate this usage.

This is because birds ARE dinosaurs, all of them. And ALL dinosaurs are members of the group reptilia. And, because these names are hierarchical, that means birds are also members of reptilia. Once an animal is a member of an evolutionary group, it never leaves it, no matter how much it evolves and changes in the future. So, for example, platypus, bats, whales, and apes are all members of Mammalia, even though they look and behave very differently.

Aves > Dinosauria > Reptilia

So, in the traditional sense, the word 'reptile' is treated as a 'paraphyletic' name, effectively referring to any animal that is a member of the group reptilia, but excluding birds; this is unfortunate historical baggage. The word 'reptile' was coined before we knew that birds are dinosaurs. And frustratingly, this is causing part of the confusion.

For example, Velociraptor is closely related to birds and shares many features with the earliest birds, but it is also a member of reptilia. So, in evolutionary terms the statement that it is 'closer to birds than reptiles'' is nonsensical because it can be said that Velociraptor IS a reptile; if we treat the word reptile to equal reptilia (i.e. as a monophyletic name).


At 6:27, ''this information was picked up by Mythbusters''. What!? What relevance does that have to anything?? It seems to imply they were pivotal/influential as to how dinosaurs are depicted? or something? Since when did Mythbusters become palaeontologists? A bizarre script writing/editing choice; why not use that time to show the myriad of feathered fossils instead?


(Edited) At 6:40, you fade between older interpretations and feathered interpretations. One of these is a slightly ropy Triceratops restoration, and then you fade to a brilliant restoration of Regaliceratops; not the same genus, even though the caption stays the same.

Also, it is strange to show a group of dinosaurs that, apart from some early ancestors having sparsely populated quills, generally are known to have scaly skin, and scientific restorations haven't changed drastically without mentioning it.

(Edit) Since Jurassic Park came out, well-preserved Triceratops skin has been discovered. It would have been great to show that.


At 7:50, regarding hand/forelimb orientation, it has been known for a long time, well before 2018, that dinosaurs could not pronate their wrists.


At 8:10, ''They're consistent with the ones that pigeons have''. Not sure why pigeons were singled out here? Many birds have quill knobs.


Overall, this video is, at times, hyperbolic and needs better research and editing. For example, the presenter shouldn't be saying one thing, and then the video cutting to images/videos showing another. Unfortunately, this is common problem palaeontology docs have. It is almost hypocritical for a video like this, criticising dinosaur movies for making mistakes and 'lying to the audience', if this video is going to do the same.

Finally, we live in an age of misinformation/disinformation and getting the details right on informative videos matters.

[jennifervan]

Riddle has come so far over the years, please don't ever stop creating

[Thelastday__]

I personally find the parrot t-Rex the most intimidating because when I think of poison I think of colorful species of animals, and with the size of the T-Rex and the colorful-ness of it, I kinda looks like an oversized poisoness frog or snake

[Chris-tvjq]

Q: What do you call a dinosaur with bad eyesight?
A: Do-you-think-he-saurus.

[jacoblofthus]

To be honest, it genuinely surprises me that so many people still look at Jurassic Park/World, and think "This must be the absolute truth about dinosaurs. No need to question or research anything."
It's like they've all completely forgotten, or just don't know, that these are actual living animals we're talking about.

[Bird_man]

6:36
I believe T. rex would look nothing like this as paleontologist discovered some scales bits on it and it would be more meaty and chunky
This might be what a dromeosaurid would look not a T. rex

[REGULATORnpt]

the most intimidating version of Rex is the parrot. birds are twitchy, very fast, great eye sight. imagine a bird can spot a worm from a high tree, or an eagle sees a fish from the clouds, then they are able to swoop those things up mid flight. that takes extreme coordination, speed perception and timing. now put those attributes on a 9 tonne piece of meat that kills things with its face..

[shake_shells]

Maybe they appeared much cuter than those scary imagination. All we found are bones, which can’t decide how they really looked like. Same idea that we cant imagine how a human being looks like just based on the skeleton.

[captain_NMO]

no. birds are reptiles, all dinosaurs were reptiles. feathers are relatively recently modified scales. warm blooded doesn't mean non reptile.

[ohhhSmooth]

As someone who is scared of ostrichs, exotic birds, and most feathered, colorful animals that move their head unnaturally fast:
I see this as an absolute loss.

[StratBurst]

The actual name for the raptors in Jurassic Park was Deinonychus. Spielberg thought that Velociraptor sounded cooler.

[hoibsh]

Now I wanna know how dinosaurs really sounded.

[CharlieCAndGeorgeC]

i mean in the movie they explain how the dinosaurs aren’t in fact 100% pure and look different than how they actually looked millions of years ago because they had to use other animal dna to fill in the gaps.

[LazyCreepypasta]

If we invent time travel I'm definitely going back to that time to see what they look like

[vinceruffolo]

Two things: First the author Michael Chriton was the one who designed the Velociraptor as it was portrayed in Jurassic Park. He knew it was wrong but liked the name better than Deinonychus, the actual animal it was based on. 2. Science will show that all the versions of the T-Rex that you presented are inaccurate. Many dinosaurs definitely, had feathers but T-Rex is yet to yield any evidence of such. Also, large animals have overheating issues when they have feathers.

[richarddarmstadt]

When I was a boy in the 1970's my dad used to make dinosaur models for me, one day he painted one with orange spots and when I questioned it he said something to the effect that no one knows. I dont think I heard the concept of them being bird like until the 80's or 90's. It was commonly accepted back then that they were giant lizards.