Science Memes

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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

If you’re confused: Birds are dinosaurs, crocodiles aren’t; note the “closest living relatives”

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Forgive my ignorance on the subject, but huh?

Clearly I missed a briefing somewhere. I thought that crocodiles were from that era, or is that the joke that I'm somehow missing?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The joke is that birds aren't only related to dinos, but are dinos themselves.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yes and the cruel part is... Pterosaurs are not Dinosaurs!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

It might be easy to brush off my complaint as a case of paleo-pedantry, but word choice matters. "Dinosaur" is a word for a specific group of creatures united by shared characteristics and which had their own evolutionary history—it is not a catch-all term for anything reptilian and prehistoric.

We have known about this distinction for a long time, and I bet that your average 10-year old paleo fan would know not confuse the groups.

https://xkcd.com/2501/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

So, it's a joke about the fact that both are essentially dinosaurs?

.. nope, I got nothing ..

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

Here's my take:

Low IQ: crosc looks like dinos so they are the cloests living relative to dinos. Mid IQ: birds are direct descendents of dinos so they are the closest living relatives to dinos. High IQ: since birds are direct descendent they are just dinos, not a relative. Which makes crocs the next closest living relative to dinos/birds.