Welcome to Argo's dinosaur nest!

Intro

Hello, my name is Argo. I am learning a little bit about web design and I figured I would practice by talking about my passion for dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are an incredibly diverse clade of avian and non-avian reptiles that encompass a larger clade known as the archosaurs. Dinosaurs have fascinated the imagination for many, and show us very important insights into evolutionary history.

Some examples:

A photograph of a flock of penguins.
Penguins
A rendition of velociraptor.
Rendition of a velociraptor by Fred Wierum - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
A photograph of a 3-d model of Sue, a famous T-rex in the Chicago museum.
Sue, the T-Rex at the Chicago Museum.

While I'm currently focusing on dinosaurs, my hope is that this site can talk about all things paleontology!

What makes a dinosaur a dinosaur?

Dinosaurs are a clade of reptiles in the broader archosaur group. They began to emerge in the Late Triassic Period, around 230 million years ago. What separates dinosaurs from other archosaurs is in their hip structure. They have a depression in the hip bone allows them to walk upright, as opposed to their crocodilian cousins, whose legs are naturally sprawled to their sides.

A digital diagram depicting the structure of different animals. The left depicts a 'sprawling' stance, the center depicts an 'erect' stance for dinosaurs and mammals, and the right depicts a 'pillar-erect' stance for rauisuchaians.
A diagram featuring three types of stances found in terrestrial animals by Fred the Oyster, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Because birds are a part of this clade, they are not just related to dinosaurs- they are dinosaurs. They evolved from a specific type of carnivorous dinosaur known as therapods.

Behold!...A Dinosaur?

You may have heard the famous conversation between Plato and Diogenes. Both humans and certain dinosaurs evolved bipedalism exclusively - not as a sign of close common ancestry. This is a process known as convergent evolution,when similar traits are evolved independently in different organisms. Let's take a look at human v. dinosaur bipedalism.

A digital image of a t-rex skeleton. A digital diagram featuring a human skeleton.
While dinosaurs evolved the aforementioned hip bone depression, humans were able to walk upright based on the alignment of their spines. We evolved our spines to go directly under our head, shifting the center of gravity. Left photo By Johann "nojhan" Dréo - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link. Right photo from Pixabay, a free stock photo site.