# Do you think we could train or tame dinosaurs? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 10, 2025, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140 "2025-02-10T17:31:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/61 "2025-02-11T18:59:46Z")
> [@Al128](#): > > Maybe tomorrow you can explain the Word… Now take the rest of the Day off. No way. Google it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/62 "2025-02-11T20:07:00Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > . Has anyone even tried to tame a Komodo dragon? I doubt it. But researchers at zoos have played tug-of-war with young ones [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/almJghl1VXk/hqdefault.jpg "Komodo Dragon Enrichment") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=almJghl1VXk) And they’ve also been observed playing with buckets and paper bags. So they are probably reasonably bright. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/63 "2025-02-11T20:08:29Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I doubt it. But researchers at zoos have played tug-of-war with young ones Man, I would not wear shorts around one of those lizards. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/64 "2025-02-11T20:22:59Z")
I wouldn’t want any part of my body close to one. The Wikipedia article says a zookeeper I’ve trained one to come out when it heard her voice. So i guess they are slightly trainable, too. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/65 "2025-02-11T20:24:25Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > > [@Gorsnak](#): > > > > I have never spent time around emus or ostriches, but if they’re significantly dumber than chickens… > > I’ve raised chickens for more than 30 years. They are definitely brighter than emus, but that bar is so low it’s painted on the ground. We had chickens one summer at camp. Since that experience, I’ve never felt bad about eating a chicken. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/66 "2025-02-11T20:25:57Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I wouldn’t want any part of my body close to one. Yep. I mean there are armored snake proof high boots, brush proof pants, heavy bite proof gloves, all of which I would wear if I _had to_- but I would really rather not, thankyouverymuch. Those bites are nasty. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/67 "2025-02-11T21:49:51Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > I disagree on both points. Falcons are good at _hunting_, they are not good at solving hunting problems. They are good at spotting a rabbit in a field and diving onto that rabbit but they are not equipped to figure out what to do if the rabbit enters a tunnel system or the rabbit is in a mirror maze or the rabbit is wearing a shock vest. If the situation is more complex than “Spot prey, dive on prey, kill prey” they don’t have mental tools to handle it. Spotting prey from above and diving on it is actually a fairly complex geometry problem, and falcons are good at it. So good they generally don’t have to waste time on what happens to rabbits entering tunnels, they just go find another rabbit. What matters to falcons is not what matters to us. > [@Jophiel](#): > > Likewise, falcons get trained by humans. They do not come to humans thinking this looks like a good deal for them. The fact that falcons have to be trained from youth, are hooded so they don’t freak out, and are tied to the glove with jesses so they don’t just leave is a pretty good indication that the birds aren’t hanging out on a glove because they’re bright enough to make that decision independently. No, falcons are not “trained from youth”. At least not in the US. Wild birds are captured and already have at least some hunting ability. The birds ARE released and they do, in fact, fly free. They return to the falconer of their own accord and if they choose not to do so there is nothing the falconer can do. The birds can fly away any time they’re released to fly outside and some do in fact do exactly that. If they do not it’s because they have decided they gain something from the association. You will never train a raptor to imitate human speech or do tricks like a parrot… but hey, you’ll never teach a parrot to hunt like a raptor, either. Or, for that matter, for all that an African Grey parrot is one smart bird you’ll never teach it to navigate like a common pigeon - it’s not just a matter of intelligence, it’s what the animal is adapted to do at all. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > Falcons can’t be trained to do anything but what they already do anyway, only slightly modified to do it with people in close proximity. Falcons are more like sentient single-purpose weaponry than they are what we think of as a trained animal. ^ This is actually a pretty good description of a falcon. > [@Jasmine](#): > > Reptiles have no feelings. It’s like trying to love a stone. They leave me cold, literally and figuratively. There is some reason to believe reptiles actually ARE capable of feelings. Probably not complex or sophisticated feelings, but they can feel fear, be stressed/anxious, and have preferences for locations and/or even individual humans. I’m not saying you have to _like_ them, but they aren’t little automatons. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/68 "2025-02-11T21:53:40Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Spotting prey from above and diving on it is actually a fairly complex geometry problem, and falcons are good at it. That’s a real tenuous and stretched definition of “good at problem solving” by any normal definition. There’s a lot of geometry that goes into my cat jumping up onto the tall dresser but no one would reasonably say that makes her “good at problem solving”. That makes her good at jumping up onto dressers. There’s probably more geometry that goes into catching a moving fly with your tongue but no one says “Wow, toads are really good at solving problems.” “Problem solving” suggests a good degree of handling unusual circumstances and ingenuity. Falcons aren’t good a problem solving, they’re good at diving onto a target. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/69 "2025-02-11T22:36:20Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > “Problem solving” suggests a good degree of handling unusual circumstances and ingenuity. Falcons aren’t good a problem solving, they’re good at diving onto a target. I think what you might be saying is that it takes higher intelligence to solve NEW problems. Animals which have gotten this far in their evolution are all excellent at solving the normal problems they are faced with. This is why people say chickens are stupid. They are geniuses at solving natural chicken problems, lousy at solving not-normally-encountered-by-chicken problems. Only a few animals including humans are good at new problems. And we’re not nearly as good as we imagine we are. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/70 "2025-02-12T00:23:20Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > And we’re not nearly as good as we imagine we are. Oh yes I am! ducks! 🦆 🦆 🦆 and runs away I am off duckduckduckgoing how stupid ducks actually are, but I’ll come back. Maybe I’ll be able to tell you the answer 🦆 . 🦆. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/71 "2025-02-12T00:25:07Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > I am off duckduckduckgoing how stupid ducks actually are, but I’ll come back. Maybe I’ll be able to tell you the answer 🦆 . 🦆. I have stories about ducks. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/72 "2025-02-12T00:28:11Z")
Please tell. As ducks are dinosaurs it is not a hijack. Will your duck stories make me hungry? Ducks are tasty. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/73 "2025-02-12T00:56:53Z")
My stories are mostly about my ill fated attempt to raise ducks for herding training. Ducks are often so used because they behave much like sheep when moved as a group. Here are some things you probably did not particularly want to know about ducks: 1. unlike chickens, which start growing adult feathers as soon as possible and by the time they’re a month old look like tiny adult hens and can fly and roost, ducks stay fat and fuzzy for an interminable length of time. At a month old they are just larger ducklings, and their only talents are swimming, pooping copiously, and eating. 2. ducks are horrible to each other. Males will rape a female to death if she cannot escape. Keep males and females separate, and they will pick out a single duck to destroy. Remove that duck and they’ll pick another one. 3. ducks cannot master even tasks that chickens can. For example, go into a safe box at night. Nope. Chicken get that almost immediately. Ducks, you’ll have to catch every frickin duck individually, for months. Even when they finally learn that the dog will bother them untill they march up that little ramp, there will always be several that will do anything else than that, forever. 4. ducks really stink. And they will befoul any body of water within reach, almost immediately. Give me chickens any day. I admit ducks are very tasty. Peking Duck, mmmm. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/74 "2025-02-12T04:37:44Z")
I had duck for lunch today. (leftover from dinner yesterday.) Ducks are delicious. In my experience, chickens are nasty to each other, too. Although the roosters don’t usually kill the hens. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/75 "2025-02-12T04:51:17Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Other ratites, like cassowaries and ostriches, have been known to kill people. Somewhat famously, in the early 1980s, Johnny Cash was nearly disemboweled by one of the ostriches he had on his farm outside of Nashville. > **[Johnny Cash once lost a fight with an ostrich and nearly died](https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/johnny-cash-fight-ostrich/)** > > The legendary singer Johnny Cash once got into an altercation with an ostrich and did not come out on top. Read the full event here. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/76 "2025-02-12T10:03:42Z")
All the duck talk is making me picture a T Rex with a [corkscrew penis](https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/duck-penis-corkscrew) [the length of its body](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_duck) and a [taste for gay necrophilia](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/mar/08/highereducation.research). ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/77 "2025-02-12T10:48:39Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Just saw some today That same sighting was a highlight of one of my trips to Indonesia. A small group in a clearing of a jungle in Flores. I laughed, coming from a country with “the big five” I was secretly delighted for that wildlife experience. I can now boast I have seen wild chickens. In the wild. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/78 "2025-02-12T12:27:45Z")
Lol, whereas I’m wondering what t-rex steaks taste like. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/79 "2025-02-12T12:36:36Z")
Chickens can be nasty to each other but not as bad as ducks. Usually it is one chicken who relentlessly picks on another – typically the perpetrator is the one just above the victim. It could be that, evolved to be aquatic, ducks would escape each other on the water but if trapped on land, they have nothing to stop them murdering each other. A lot of domestic animal problems are like this. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140/80 "2025-02-12T12:45:54Z")
Maybe. I see wild ducks every summer, and I’ve never seen them attack each other. I’ve seen mallards mating, and it didn’t look any more rapey than a lot of animal sex. Not that I spend hours watching ducks, but i hang out places where they hang out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-we-could-train-or-tame-dinosaurs/1014140.md?page=5)