When thinking about the prehistoric era you may think of a world that isn’t quite accurate to the world that was before us. So let me take you back 245 million years ago to a world filled with bugs the size of soccer balls and animals who ate each other.
#1 Feathers
While many people think of dinosaurs with scales or skin a good portion of them actually had feathers. These feathers wouldn’t have been all over the body for most of these animal it would be more of a mixture of feathers and skin (or scales that’s controversial). The reason they had these feathers was most likely for thermal regulation/insulation which just means that in the cold it would help keep the heat in and in the heat it would help keep the heat out.
#2 Dinosaurs are dead
Obviously there aren’t T-Rexes walking around but there are very close relatives/ancestors that might even be hanging out in your backyard. Birds are our very own living dinosaurs, or an ancestor rather. Theropod dinosaurs are the ancestors of these animals, and if you look closely you can see the resemblance. There are also animals like crocodiles and sharks that lived in the time of the dinos but arent actual dinosaurs
#3 Dinosaurs are lizards
This isn’t true, Crocodiles and dinosaurs are relatives which I believe is where this misconception started but they are not the same. As mentioned above, dinosaurs are the most closely related to birds, that’s why they have feathers. In reality dinosaurs are very unique animals and while birds are their closest living descendants, there is only one animal that I can think of that even compares to the dinosaur, the emu. The emu is an ancestor of the Dromornithids which lived in the times of the dinosaurs and definitely is not a lizard.
#4 Dinosaurs and humans were in the same period
This cannot be farther from the truth, if fact 65 Million years further than the truth. Humans and dinos never coexisted, if they did, it probably wouldn’t be for very long. Humans like to kill and so do dinosaurs, it would end in a never ending war or a tense truce that humans would eventually destroy. Needless to say there is a reason why humans and dinosaurs never met each other.
Thank you for embarking on this journey with me, and I hoped you learned something! Before you click out of this and never think of it again, I want to remind you that I am by no means an archaeologist or scientist so while I tried my best to get the information right this article should only be used as a fun read and not an actual scientific paper.
