Why no scaled animals with turkey hips?

[Jophiel]

@Darwin_s_Finch

Keep in mind that here you are comparing “theropods” to “all the other dinosaurs”.

I know. That’s mainly because, to the best of my knowledge, the theropods were the only carnivorous dinosaurs so it feels – to me – like an interesting lack of diversity on the carnivore (meat, fish, eggs, insects, etc) side versus what we see in mammals. But it may not be interesting at all for other reasons I’m unaware of.

The basic structure of the theropods seems largely the same to me but that might just be because I’m used to quadruped animals so the bipedal theropods stand out more. Still, Tyrannosaurus and Oviraptor seem more similar carnivores than, say, a mole and Homo sapiens.

Anyway, I hope I’m not coming across as argumentative because I’m absolutely not qualified to argue I’m just trying to noodle through it all. Apparently I’m unique in seeing this as peculiar.

[Darwin_s_Finch]

@Jophiel

The basic structure of the theropods seems largely the same to me but that might just be because I’m used to quadruped animals so the bipedal theropods stand out more. Still, Tyrannosaurus and Oviraptor seem more similar carnivores than, say, a mole and Homo sapiens.

True, but then mammals have had an extra 65 million years to diversify that the bulk of Dinosauria didn’t get (if you throw in birds, however, you get an awful lot of diversity, seeing as how extant bird species outnumber extant mammal species by around 2:1). During the Mesozoic, mammals weren’t much more diverse than dinosaurs (there were, for example, an awful lot of ratty-looking or shrewy-looking mammals). The K-Pg catastrophes opened up a lot of ecological niches for mammals, which allowed for some rapid diversification (and, of course, it worked wonders for birds, too).

[Jophiel]

@Darwin_s_Finch

True, but then mammals have had an extra 65 million years to diversify that the bulk of Dinosauria didn’t get (if you throw in birds, however, you get an awful lot of diversity, seeing as how extant bird species outnumber extant mammal species by around 2:1). During the Mesozoic, mammals weren’t much more diverse than dinosaurs (there were, for example, an awful lot of ratty-looking or shrewy-looking mammals).

True, good point. I tend to think of mammals happening after (or at the tail end) of the dinosaurs which is a misconception on my part.

[Weisshund]

@Jophiel

This thread had me thinking about theropods. It’s my understanding that, out of the terrestrial true dinosaurs (no dimetrodons or pterosaurs, etc) only the theropods were carnivorous or even really omnivorous. And all the theropods were some form of carnivorous (meat, insects, eggs, fish, etc).

This sounds “weird” to me when I think about modern mammals where you have canines, felines, ursines, mustelids and others (even some primates including us) making up the carnivorous side of the ecosystem. What feels, to me, like a much larger spread than what existed on the dinosaur side. Plus, all the theropods seem roughly the same in structure – larger back limbs, smaller front limbs that often acted as arms, long tails, similar skull shapes – compared to either the range of shapes and sizes on the herbivore side (you wouldn’t confuse a silhouette of an iganodon with that of a brachiosaurus) or among modern mammalian meat-eaters.

But… is it unusual that all the theropods seem so similar? Is there something that I’m missing? Just one of them things?

Well, not all Theropods are Carnivores
Therizinosaurs is supposed to be a Theropod, looks a little different, definitely no Tyrannosaur, and likes veggies. Possibly herding type animal too.

And Theropod is one kind of Dinosaur, not everything alive then is a Dinosaur.
Plesiosaur isn’t a dinosaur, pterosaurs are not, snakes and lizards are not
There are other animals living there that are carnivores but not dinosaurs, so you have diversity, even synapsids like dimetrodon which will go on to become furry mammals.

Felid is one kind of mammal
They all look like cats, some bigger some smaller, some orange some black etc, but they all look like cats.

I have little theropods at home incidentally.
Not only do they like meat, they are damned cannibals, they love chicken breast
It’s just wrong.