• guy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is a serious issue with our perception of dinosaurs though. So many animals that look completely different to one another nowadays have quite similar skeletons. You really can’t be too sure about fat distribution, muscles, cartilage, skin features, colours, textures in fossils.

    Dinosaurs are traditionally represented in drab colours, with skin placed upon the skeleton with a process known as “shrink wrapping”, tightly attaching the skin to the frame. But many animals that we know now really don’t work like that.

      • mrcarrot@lemmy.calebmharper.com
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        1 year ago

        Well yes, but I said “technically” because the technical scientific definition of dinosaur is not the one most people think of.

    • interolivary@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      And it’s not just technically: birds literally are theropod dinosaurs, and the only known dinosaurs to survive to modern age

  • Galven@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Eh, not likely, especially for dinosaurs that we have full skeletons of, because that much fat would be seen on the bones as damage from walking.

    • Barry Zuckerkorn@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Who said it’s fat, though? Sauropods are interesting in that they had systems of air sacs, like modern birds, that can puff up their apparent size without necessarily adding a lot of weight.

  • terwn43lp@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    not a bad theory, but I assume penguins evolved their shape for swimming and insulation