The History of Dinosaurs Research

Dinosaurs are magnificent. That's a no brainer. But the way that we have learn and depicted them have been less, consistent. So today, I might as well tell you all about that part of dinosaurs history. (note, there will be some jokes in it so don't take everything too seriously. Just have some fun while reading this)

Dinosaurs are a group of reptiles that first appeared during the middle of the Triassic Period. Dinosaurs are divided into three major clades, Ornithischid (Which included the likes of Ceratopsia, Heterodontosauride, Stegodaurid, Ornithopoda, Ankysauria, and Pachycephalosauria), Sauropodomorpha (Which included subgroups such as Buriolestes, Eoraptor, Mbiresaurus, Xixiposaurus, Guaibasauridae, Saturnaliidae, and Bagualosauria) and Theropoda (Which included subgroups such as Tawa, Velocipes, Erythrovenator, Neotheropoda, and Eodromaeus). And in the span of 245 million years, Dinosaurs evolved and grew to become the dominant land-vertebrates during its time until their sudden extinction during the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event in which all of the non-avian dinosaurs died out and with their end eventually led the pathway in which mammals would eventually led the way for mammals to take over as the dominant land-vertebrates of Earth. Though most Dinosaurs did die out during the extinction event, some do survive the event and in fact, they still roam the earth to this day as birds who are classified as feathered dinosaurs due to them evolving from theropods. But we don't always know about all of that. In the last couple of hundreads of years we've spend on rediscovering and learning on them, a lot of thing have happened. Many things that we previously thought were the truth now isn't and the way we see them have changed too.

So, how did we do it? how did we come from seeing these fossilized remains as something from an ancient mystical beast to now giants that once roamed the planets? How did we even get to this point where we could theorically make something close to what they sound like? and is there a chance we can bring them back to life using the tool we have now?............................................................................

..............................................................................................................................................no

That is not how life work.

Not even an ancient mosquito that is trapped in an ember from those periods of time that do contain dinosaur bloods would useful as all of those dino-DNA's would be long LONG gone. And besides, do YOU want a 2-3 meters tall theropods chasing and hunting you down and then proceeding to eat your organs WHILE you are still alive? Anyway, you wanted to know those answers? Buckle up cause I’m gonna tell you the history of dinosaurs study.

Part One: Rediscovering the Dead

England is known for many things. The Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, The Royal Palace, Fish'n'Chips, Beans for breakfast, Aardman Animation, and many-many more. But one thing that everyone seemed to glance over is that the place is also where the dinosaurs were first recognized by scientist and therefore became a valid group (Dinosaurs fossils have been founded for a long time but people thought they were either just dead animals or a giant mythical beast in which many MANY mythical beast were created because of it). During the 17th centuries, more specifically 1676, dinosaur bones were discovered in Oxfordshire. Those bones were later identified as a femur of a newly discovered animal and they identified it as Megalosaurus, making it the first dinosaur ever to be identified.

Megalosaurus femur's schematic

But even after they classify it as a brand new, previously unknown giant animal, they haven’t yet fully named the group that Megalosaurus belongs to as dinosaurs. And for a long time, that giant femur bone alongside more discovered fossilized bones remained mostly a mystery by the masses. But then between 1815 and 1824, a geologist and paleontologist named William Buckland became the first person to describe the non-avian dinosaurs in a scientific journal after he collected more Megalosaurus bones. Then during that period of time, a second non-avian dinosaur was discovered and identified after Megalosaurs. That dinosaur was named Iguanodon, which is named due to the similarity of it’s bones to iguanas. Eventually in 1842, the name dinosaurs were first coined by Sir Richard Owen during a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The term “dinosaur” derives from the Ancient Greek words which the Dino means “Terrible, Potent, or Fearfully great” and Saurus which mean “Lizard or Reptile” hence the name “Terrible Lizard”. And in the next couple of years, dinosaur fossils were not only studied even more, but they also started to display them in museums, more fossils were dug up and studied, and they were slowly becoming more and more well-known in the public. Thanks in part from illustration of them or as we call them Paleoart, movies, books, and even statues of them that decorates many parks and places.

An Iguanodon

Part Two: Paleontology: War for Bones

Othniel Charles Marsh (Left) and Edward Drinker Cope (Right)

Then a war broke out. No, really, a war did happen. Well, it’s not THAT kind of war in which bombs goes BOOM!, guns goes BRRRRR!!!!, and peoples with huge dreams, hopes, and loving families with children waiting for them dropped dead in masses as if they were nothing special, that happens way later. The war I’m referring to is a fierce fight between two paleontologists named Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope in which they tried to beat each other's score in the Who can Discover more Dinos game and leave a lasting legacy in paleontology history. Ok so it’s not really a war but more or less just like how siblings keep on trying to one-up themself but everyone keeps calling the event as the “Bone War” so yeah. This “war” lasted for 30 years, ending in 1897 when Edward Drinker Cope Die from literally being broke as he spend his entire fortune on searching up dinosaurs bones, practically leaving him too broke to afford any medicines to cure himself and die as a result. And even then, Charles Marsh still beats him with discovering 86 new species while Edward Drinker Cope discovered only 57 new species. But even though their contribution was and is remarkable, they did leave a lot of damages like destroyed or badly damaged fossils from bomb that both parties used in order to unearthed fossils which resulted in many specimens and possible species lost. Still, the war did leave some positive impact on the paleontology scene like the discovery of notable dinosaurs such as Allosaurs, Triceratops, Camarasaurus, Stegosaurs, and many-MANY more. And beside them, many prehistoric sea and flying reptiles were found and identified thanks to them. Oh and WW1 and WW2 happened in the next couple of decades but everyone knew what was happening so I’m not going to talk about it EXCEPT for the fact and during WW2, a museum in Germany was destroyed from bombing by Britain. And that museum contains the (At the time) ONLY fossil of Spinosaurs, and it did not survive the bombing and thus, research on Spinosaurus were significantly hindered until a skull was founded in 1995 and later in the early 200s till 2014 where they finally found more Spino bones, YAY!! (This is an Important piece of the story trust me ;)

Part Three: Wait, T-rex is that Chubby?

no, just look at that T-rex. he's so friend shape (Just don't get too close with it)

After the World War, something called “The Dinosaur Renaissance” Happened in which many important discoveries were made that changed how everyone looked at dinosaurs. Back then, people saw dinosaurs as big, dumb, lazy, uncaring, brutal and sluggish animals where they usually walked with their tails dragged onto the ground and stood with a posture similar to those movie monsters back during the 50s till the 80s. And not only that, but those old dinosaur portrayals made them look naked (technically they are) as they have no colors, no fur, no pattern, no nothing, just scales. And oh, did we even mention how some of them were so shrinkwrapped that they practically looked like they haven’t eaten for months? I mean, let’s see some old paleo-arts.

They might look absolutely beautiful, cool, and amazing, but let’s not kid ourselves those designs are outdated. Thanks to the renaissance era, Paleontologist and to the extend, us, now knows that the dinosaurs aren’t slow, unforgiving and dumb to the point that their sheer dumbness caused them their extinction, some of them can be fast, agile, caring, and are definitely would be smart enough to not cause themself to go extinct. Well, not all of them are THAT smart. Stegosaurus has a brain the size of a walnut. But at least they are as smart as literally any other modern and prehistoric animals. And during this era where the theory in which birds evolved from dinosaurs was first proposed and slowly, this theory is strengthened by many evidence, primarily from dinosaurs such as Archeopteryx proving that yes, some dinosaurs do possess feathers. And thanks to this era, most media portrayed dinosaurs as how they should look if they were real and thanks to it, more and more people are slowly shifting from the old and inaccurate depiction of dinosaurs to know where dinosaurs are more like how any animals would’ve looked. And somehow even after all this time, they still retain their coolness even if they might’ve lost some of the monstrous part for realism.

An archeopteryx fossil

Some Paleoart for you to enjoy :)

Anyway thank you to anyone who's reading this! If this stupid post does well then maybe I'll post a version of it in Indonesia but honestly I just want to talk about my interest to all of you. And hey, If this does well, I might as well make another one but about Dinosaurs biology and if that does well then maybe I'll do one about the extinction event I talk about at the beginning.

Or maybe I should talk about my other interest too in here..........hmmmmmmm..........

But anyway thank you for anyone who even viewed this mess of a text and if you do like it, please a like too <3

Anyway, I hope you like what I got to offer and I hope you have yourself a wonderful week!

Thank you!

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_renaissance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur#History_of_study

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars

https://www.amnh.org/dinosaurs/dinosaur-facts

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/smithsonian-books/2024/12/05/a-brief-history-of-dinosaur-discoveries/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-smart-were-dinosaurs-new-studies-fuel-the-debate/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-top-ten-weirdest-dinosaur-extinction-ideas-23642539/