Penny Arcade - Comic - Dinophobia

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Penny Arcade - Comic - Dinophobia

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

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Overkillengine

Not where I thought it was going, and I am glad for that.

Hevach

Overkillengine wrote: »

Not where I thought it was going, and I am glad for that.

I mean, sauropods are basically giraffes.

FireballDragon

It's not enough that dinosaurs are already extinct, Capcom wants to render then extinct over and over again?

Djiem

Who hasn't dreamt of riding a lobotomized triceratops to school?

Delzhand

After a brief wiki-tour, I learned that Brontosaurus is real again, which gives me the opposite feeling as learning that Pluto isn't a planet

Hevach

Delzhand wrote: »

After a brief wiki-tour, I learned that Brontosaurus is real again, which gives me the opposite feeling as learning that Pluto isn't a planet

Brontosaurus never stopped being real if you read primary sources and not schoolbook "this isn't a real dinosaur" stories.

The rough timeline is that Brontosaurus excelsus and Brontosaurus amplus were originally paired to hypothetical skulls based on Brachiosaurus, while Apatosaurus parvus and Apatosaurus yahnahpin were pairs to hypothetical skulls based on Camarasaurus.

Around the 1970's the two genuses were combined when a Brontosaurus amplus skeleton was found near Camarasaurus-like teeth, leading to the (still wrong) belief that both genuses had similar skulls.

So now Brontosaurus excelsus and amplus became Apatosaurus excelsus and amplus.

But then came the discovery of actual skulls. Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus both had skulls more like Diplodocus, but with key structural differences that split the genus. Interestingly Brontosaurus took not just excelsus and amplus, but also the original Apatosauruses parvus and yahnahpin, leaving Apatosaurus ajax and louisae (originally Atlantosaurs) behind.


So entirely the same situation as Pluto. You're having feelings because you are applying some kind of value judgement to a purely quantitative classification system.

Pluto is at least a simpler story - Kuiper and Tombaugh determined a few months after discovery that it wasn't a planet when they adjusted their mass estimate from 10 earths down to 0.01 earths. It just survived for a long time on a rule astronomy has (but biology does not) that no category can be created on a single example.

Lucascraft

Djiem wrote: »

Who hasn't dreamt of riding a lobotomized triceratops to school?

Why's it gotta be lobotomized? Why can't it just be a well trained and obedient good doggie?

Djiem

Lucascraft wrote: »

Djiem wrote: »

Who hasn't dreamt of riding a lobotomized triceratops to school?

Why's it gotta be lobotomized? Why can't it just be a well trained and obedient good doggie?

Look into that dinosaur 's eyes. Only the void remains.

Johnny17

Humbug! Dinosaurs belong in witty social comedy not shooters!

Rhesus Positive

Johnny17 wrote: »

Humbug! Dinosaurs belong in witty social comedy not shooters!

Pride and Pterodactyls
Sense and Sauropods

v2micca

Calling foul. Gabe would call them Majestic Reptiles and Tycho would correct him.

dennis

v2micca wrote: »

Calling foul. Gabe would call them Majestic Reptiles and Tycho would correct him.

Eh? They are reptiles. And they are majestic.

Steel Angel

FireballDragon wrote: »

It's not enough that dinosaurs are already extinct, Capcom wants to render then extinct over and over again?

I'm guessing that anything kaiju-adjacent reads a bit differently for Capcom's devs than it does a Western audience.

dennis

Steel Angel wrote: »

FireballDragon wrote: »

It's not enough that dinosaurs are already extinct, Capcom wants to render then extinct over and over again?

I'm guessing that anything kaiju-adjacent reads a bit differently for Capcom's devs than it does a Western audience.

Pretty sure to kaiju, dinosaurs are just "a slightly larger bug."

Zilla360

Rhesus Positive wrote: »

Johnny17 wrote: »

Humbug! Dinosaurs belong in witty social comedy not shooters!

Pride and Pterodactyls
Sense and Sauropods

@Rhesus Positive Downton Diplodocus.

ATF_Griff

Why do they think dinosaurs make good monsters that just attack everything? They're animals that used to exist. They would probably be either indifferent or frightened if they encountered us. I mean do you see lions and tigers running around attacking everything they see?

Lttlefoot

Steel Angel

ATF_Griff wrote: »

Why do they think dinosaurs make good monsters that just attack everything? They're animals that used to exist. They would probably be either indifferent or frightened if they encountered us. I mean do you see lions and tigers running around attacking everything they see?

Well the closest living relative of dinosaurs are birds and you know what's also a large bird? Geese.

dennis

jberry

morelike dinophilia