Comments on: Trunkless Dinos

By: dinosaucer

dinosaucer — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:10:18 +0000

Is there any evidence that the skull of a brachiosaurus has a large sinus cavity? That would indicate a trunk. What are the two holes in the front of the upper jaw, do elephants have those holes?
Anyway I wanted to say that the brachiosarus could’ve used a trunk on the top of it’s head as a snorkle. Since whales have sharp teeth and a nose on the top of their head, the trunk could have done the same as a blow hole. After all the Brachiosaurus lived its life under water to make up for its huge weight, or to use water pressure to digest food or something. Is that totally dis-proven?

By: Devonian

Devonian — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:55:53 +0000

“Behemoth is said to have a tail like a cedar tree”
iirc, the word translated “tail” can also refer to the penis (which gives a new perspective on the “sinew of his stones” line that follows it)…

By: ukulelemike

ukulelemike — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:31:54 +0000

DJ Plas: Behemoth in the Bible was only said to be an elephant by those who figured it had to be, since they didn’t consider it could be a dinosaur. Problem with that theory is that Behemoth is said to have a tail like a cedar tree-which elephants, to my understanding, don’t, not ever have. But a large dinosaur, the chief of the ways of God, sure does. And it fits the other qualifications, living in the fens and swamps, eating grass, and being large enough to tink itself able to swallow a river, an enormous belly and bones like strong pieces of brass. Not an elephant-a large dinosaur. Behemoth merely means ‘large land animal’.

By: kittenz

kittenz — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:02:00 +0000

Every day as I drive to work, I pass flocks of wild turkeys grazing in roadside meadows and they always make me think of dinosaurs .

By: red_pill_junkie

red_pill_junkie — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:01:06 +0000

For me, the biggest argument against a sauropod like the brachiosaur sporting a trunk, is in the teeth these animals had. They're specialized for nipping at the foliage of the trees; so having those kinds of teeth as well as also having a trunk that is meant to pluck the leaves and bring them directly to the mouth doesn't make much sense from an evolutionary point of view.

By: Ceroill

Ceroill — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:16:26 +0000

Kittenz, I remember back in the 70′s when the general public first heard about the idea that dinos had feathers, were warm blooded, and at least some were direct ancestors of birds, I thought it was all great and wonderful and nifty. And amusing. I drew a cartoon of a running T-Rex (using the then rather new stiff tail/horizontal body posture) chasing some hapless fellow who was rolling on the ground in hilarity. You see the big nasty T-Rex was covered in puffy soft downy feathters. I titled my work Tyrannosaurus Rex Fluffia.

I have no problem thinking of them as birds. Just look at the Ratites. Or the Road Runner.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:33:28 +0000

I think that the presence of a trunk would be largely dependent upon the species and ecological niche of dinosaurs, so a blanket statement of “dinosaurs do not have trunks” is not necessarily known for sure. Fossilization is actually a pretty rare process and it is a safe bet that we have not yet discovered all of the species that have ever existed. Perhaps one of them had trunks. For instance, millions of years from now if someone were to find fossils of animals of today except for those of elephants or other trunked animals, they might conclude the same thing about modern day animals. I wouldn’t completely dismiss the possibility of the presence of trunked dinosaurs, it just seems that it likely wasn’t the case for those we know of.

That being said, dinosaurs may not be 100% known, but they were still animals and limited by the same physics and some of the physical constraints that modern day ones are. Unless they were completely alien freaks of nature, there are going to be certain traits and clues we can look at in their morphology that we can compare with modern animals when trying to ascertain whether these dinosaurs had trunks or not. Information on the skull structure and requirements of trunked animals can be gleaned by looking at the skull and skeletal structures of modern day animals and this can be applied to looking at dinosaur remains. Certain characteristics are going to be similar even in long extinct animals, for instance there has to be somewhere to anchor the muscles needed to manipulate a trunk, and evidence of this should be evident on skulls of dinosaurs if they in fact did have trunks. Likewise, the physical challenges of the long neck in conjunction with a trunk (as mentioned by Naish as well) are going to likely pose the same problem for dinosaurs as they would to any trunked animal today.

So regardless of whether we know exactly what dinosaurs looked like, there are still structural elements we can use to help us try and figure this out. Currently, the characteristics in these fossils are largely just not adding up with what one would expect to see in a large, trunked animal.

So considering this, it is quite reasonable to say that since known fossil skulls have none of the features that we can equate to trunked animals, or show features consistent with non-trunked animals (such as small facial nerves), that it is unlikely these species had trunks. Perhaps some unknown species of dinosaur did have trunks, but we can not presume that with current evidence.

Still, I’m never against a little speculation.

By: kittenz

kittenz — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:04:03 +0000

I don’t even think of “reptile” as anything more than a catch-all, generic descriptive term. Certainly I don’t think of dinosaurs or crocodilians as “reptiles” (although I can’t bring myself to think of them as “birds” either).

By: MattBille

MattBille — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 03:34:15 +0000

For a cryptozoologist interested in possible surviving dinosaurs, it’s not critical to know exactly what a particular dino looked like. General categories are good enough at the “interpreting sightings” stage. For example, IF one thinks a land reptile with a very long neck is indicated by reports, the animal is most likely a sauropod, but it’s not critical even to pin it down this far, and and trying to assign it by species is useless unless you have a specimen. The critical steps are 1) proving it exists at all, and 2) proving that it is not some animal known to be currently living.

By: Dj Plasmic Nebula

Dj Plasmic Nebula — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 03:01:31 +0000

Remember in the bible “Behemoth” was said to be an elephant. Well maybe some Sauropods’ have trunks….as for the hippo description i can’t really say… maybe it resembles a hippo, but had a trunk

and so it was considered both hippo or elephant. I’m onlly saying it can be a sauropod cause that’s what was the theory of behemoth’s tail.

Besides i don’t think Mokele-Mbembe has a trunk. maybe.

it’s can be that variety of sauropod. has the trunk.

So yeah… The Mokele-Mbembe may just be a mistaken identitiy. i can be an unknown variety of Sauropods……