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  • What do you call a blind dinosaur?

  • A Do-you-think-he-saurus.

  • Sorry not sorry, that was kind of lame, but it got us talking about dinosaurs!

  • The prehistoric reptiles fascinate almost all of us at some point.

  • I bet you know a lot about dinosaurs.

  • But let's run down a few of the things you might not know about them.

  • Let's just get this one out of the way firsthumans and dinosaurs never coexisted.

  • Nope.

  • Never.

  • Sorry Flintstones fans..

  • The earliest human fossil we know of dates around 2.8 million years ago.

  • whereas the dinosaurs went exist like 65 million years ago.

  • So yeah.

  • That never happened.

  • But there were little proto-mammals running around with dinosaurs for nearly 150 million

  • years.

  • Some little guys looked like mice and weighed as little as 2 grams.

  • Others actually ate dinosaurs, yeah.

  • Some of the small species ate dino eggs.

  • (Not it didn't cause their extinction) But one study published in the journal Nature

  • described two species, that dined on dinosaurs.

  • Repenomamus giganticus and Repenomamus robustus, lived in China about 130 million years ago.

  • Like its name suggests, R. Giganticus, was pretty big for an early mammal, at about 3

  • feet long.

  • Speaking of big things, some giant Pterosaurs have wingspans over 30 feet long!

  • And they aren't dinosaurs!

  • Dinosaurs are terrestrial reptiles, so by definition, pterosaurs, a flying reptile,

  • don't make the cut.

  • They did co-exist, but they are separate groups descended from a common ancestor.

  • According to Smithsonian magazine, “pterosaur is no more a dinosaur than a goldfish is a

  • shark.”

  • Oops.

  • And one study published in the journal PLOS One found that they didn't use their legs

  • to push off the ground, they used their wings!

  • They would run down hill, into a head wind and launch themselves, like a pole vaulter,

  • into the air.

  • So yeah.. don't call them dinosaurs.

  • We know A LOT about dinosaurs, but there are some really enigmatic mysteries that remain.

  • Like, what did dinosaurs sound like?

  • Unfortunately soft tissue doesn't fossilize all that well, so we don't have an exact

  • idea of what kind of noises dinosaurs.

  • Although a recent discovery shed some light on dino sounds.

  • A new species ofterror birddescribe in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology

  • was found with a nearly complete skeletonincluding voice box!

  • The researchers think that it used a narrow, low vocalization frequency range, to possibly

  • communicate or find prey.

  • Sounds pretty cool and could be the topic of a whole 'nother episode ...and maybe

  • if you were a subscriber you wouldn't miss that episode!

  • Last but not least..we still don't know what killed the dinosaurs.

  • I mean yeah, we've narrowed it down pretty close.

  • The KT event happened 65 million years ago, when an asteroid struck what is now the Yucatan

  • region of Mexico.

  • But my favorite hypothesis is that a global firestorm flash fried the dinosaurs.

  • I mean a lot of species were already on their way out when the asteroid hit.

  • One study published in the journal Nature suggests that a series of crazy volcanic eruptions

  • that started started 250,000 before the asteroid hit, might have killed a lot of them off.

  • As for that asteroid

  • A few years ago, a study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research found that

  • when the asteroid hit it kicked up a lot dirt into the Earth's atmosphere.

  • With as much force as 100 trillion tons of TNT.

  • As the debris rained back down it could have heated the upper atmosphere to 2,700 degrees

  • Fahrenheit (1,482 degrees Celsius).

  • It might have also caused a devastating winter like planet where nothing green could grow

  • so all the dinosaurs starved over months or years.

  • OOORRRR this theory suggests that it kicked off a world wide fire storm and the dinosaurs

  • baked to death in a matter of HOURS.

  • Wiping out 80% of all life on Earth.

  • Which is a really cool idea.

  • It's so .. Apocalyptical.

  • But versions of this story are over ten years old, one first appeared in the Bulletin of

  • the Geological Society of America in 2004.

  • Since then, some holes have been poked in it, like one study published in Journal of

  • the Geological Society found that fire storms weren't worldwide.

  • The heat pulses from the impact wouldn't have set nearby plants on fire, but could

  • have done some damage to those further away from the impact site.

  • Obviously more research is needed.

  • Personally, I kind of like the idea that what killed the dinosaurs still remains a mystery.

  • It's one of the most enduring, and frankly fun mysteries in science.

  • It keeps us curious.

  • Scientists learn new stuff all the time about dinosaurs.. sometimes they even re-learn old

  • things!

  • Check out Crystal as she explains why the namebrontosauruscould be making a

  • comeback in

  • this episode here.

What do you call a blind dinosaur?

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