There can be no debate: T. Rex is the world’s most popular dino.
Oh sure, there may be a few contrarians out there. They’ll say, “Well, I happen to like the Ankylosaurus”, or “No, man, the Plesiosaur had it goin’ on!” And, of course, the raptor fanboys will tell you that theirs is the coolest big lizard. Face it, though; T. Rex, as the name implies, is The King. The Elvis of dinosaurs, if you will…(s)he’s everywhere.
So, here’s your chance to profess your love of the guy with the big teeth and the little hands. Have you been to see Sue? How about the T. Rex at Wall Drug or the big statue at Cabazon?
Or, maybe, you had a bad experience with Barney growing up. In that case, feel free to explain why T. Rex isn’t your favorite terrible lizard.
I always liked the Stegosaurus. The plates on its back look really cool, and I’m amazed that such a huge animal could function with a brain the size of a peanut.
Velociraptor! Okay, okay. I know they were smaller and slightly wussier than Spielberg’s raptors. But they have awesome names. Can I choose Utahraptor? Then again, Utahraptor will never sound as cool as velociraptor!
See, I always preferred triceratops because she looks so gentle, but you just know if someone messes with her, she can take care of herself. She’s the ultimate Mama Bear.
Having grown up near the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, their T. Rex was the only one for me. A lot of your new whipper-snapper T. Rexes like Sue hadn’t been discovered yet, and I think the next nearest T. Rex was at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. IIRC, Asimov liked looking at the AMNH T. Rex, too, as described in the Tyrannosaurus Prescription.
The skull on the mounterd skeleton wasn’t the real skull – that was kept in a separate case nearby. Theirs was the most perfect skull that had been discovered to that point (despite being slightly crushed to one side), and they didn’t want to risk suspending it some 30 feet above thefloor. The skeleton had a cast skull in place of the real one.
As for my fave, I was more partial to brontosaurs (apatosaurs, nowadays), maybe because they had been depicted as “friendlier”. The movie Dinosaurus, and several other books and comics, had depicted people riding on brontosaurs, right where the neck meets the torso.
I used to think Pachycephalosaurus was cool, until I really paid attention to the display case at the AMNH. The similar Stegoceras was the big one. The Pachy was a little skull smaller than a tennis ball. Maybe it was a juvenile. Maybe it’s better call it “cute”, but it’s no longer on my list of “cool” dinosaurs.
I was a brontosaurus fan. Maybe I’m rewriting history but I think finding out about the whole apatosaurus thing killed my enthusiasm for dinosaurs. I was also a fan of parasaurolophus and ankylosaurus.
Triceratops? :dubious:
