Paul Blart Jurassic Park Cop

We’re talking all things Jurassic, as we fact check Jurassic Park! Was John Hammond in over his head? Could life uuuuuuuuh find a way? And are T-Rexes eyesight REALLY based on movement? We’re digging up dinos and the truth with Kay B!

Footnotes:

1. Baby T-Rex was a cutie pie!
2. Yutyrannus was a monstrous chicken
3. More art of yutyrannus
4. Deinocheirus: world's most terrifying muppet? 
5. Deinocheirus, like Big Bird and snuffleupagus had a baby
6. Why is this feathery monstrosity not in movies??? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature Feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasise, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology. In Today on the show, dun dat
don don don dot dot don don done? Oh my god,
Dinah sours, We're talking all things Jurassic as we fact
check Jurassic Park. Was John Hammond really in over his head?

(00:29):
Good life? Find a Way? And our t rex's eyesight
really based on movement? We're digging up dinahs and the truth,
discover this some more as we answer the age old
question which dinosaur would make Jim Henson's blood Colonel. Joining
me today is friend of the show, entertainment journalists, scientist
and dinosaur enthusiast KB Welcome, Hello, Hello, thank you so

(00:55):
much for having me again. I'm so excited. I love
Jurassic Park. I love dinosaurs. I can't wait to dive
in and see what we come up with. I know
I love Jurassic Park two. I was scared of that
movie when I was a kid. As an adult, it's
one of my favorite movies. But despite having a special
place in my heart, we're going to tear that movie

(01:17):
to shreds in this podcast the Philip Jurassic Park is
full of bad science in a lot of ways, and
so I can't wait to tear to shreds good movie
bad science. You know, I don't think the thing is
I don't think a movie has to have accurate science
to be good. Jurassic Park basically proves that. But it's

(01:39):
the I think the thing that's somewhat frustrating about it
is it's almost got good science. Like they got so
close to having good science. It's not just like terrible
all the way through. They have some really interesting ideas,
but they just narrowly miss it being good science. Yeah,
I'm curious because I don't know who was kind of
who the consultants were that they used for a Jurassic Park.

(02:01):
But I'm like, man, you know, obviously they took Michael
Critton's book and you know, kind of clearly made it
to what it was. But I'm still like, who did
they talk to? What scientists did they actually consult when
they were putting together the script for this movie? Truly?
What was it? Just a chicken and a lab coat
trying to spread like pro dinosaur propaganda. That sounds maybe

(02:27):
probably about right. Yeah, I mean the movie does have
some really interesting ideas in it, as we're going to discuss,
it actually inspired some research about dinosaurs, so really, you know,
I think it was a It was a great movie overall,
probably inspired a lot of future paleontologists too, so I
can't knock it for that. But we are gonna we're

(02:48):
gonna be buzz kills and fact check it, you know,
a bunch of wet blankets. I feel like maybe it
did kind of maybe in some sort of way, because
it is one of the first films that I remember
seeing being in the theater. I remember the entire experience.
We were late, we snapped McDonald's in and because we
were late, we had to sit on the front row.

(03:08):
I remember being terrified but also completely in awe. So
I feel like maybe it did kind of, you know,
pique by interest in in science, and maybe that's why
when I got to college, I was like, I'm on
this quest to learn war. It could have been Jurassic
Park right right, you're seeing a t rex so up close.
Just I need to learn about animals because if I don't,

(03:29):
they're gonna eat me. I'm gonna die if I don't
learn about book. So let me make the most of
my life by you know, definitely digging deep in your livelihood.
I think it's also there's something fun about it in
terms of like, yeah, we're like little shrews that turned
you know, into like hairy people. But hey, you know what,

(03:51):
at least we're alive and you giant dinosaurs aren't. So
it's there's a bit of smugness I think in looking
at dinosaurs. Oh really, you're king of the dinosaurs. Well
not not so kingly. Now we visit your bones. We
take our children to touch your bones, so they're that's
an interesting way. But yes, it's weird. I feel like

(04:14):
the only other creatures that have like well that truly
withstand the test of time are roaches. But outside of that,
you know, I'm like, they're walking with the dinosaurs, they're
walking with the humans. They truly have, you know, probably
one up on us. They're gonna have roach museums where
they have our bones on display and they bring their
little tiny children roaches in, and it's like these dumb

(04:38):
humans once thought they were in control, but we're the
ones us and such they're gonna be like, look, they
died and we are still here, right, Oh my gosh,
still living off their shelf stable twinkies. Terrifying, terrified, truly.
So uh. The first thing I wanted to talk about

(04:59):
is the main premise of the movie, which is that
you you know, what's what's the famous line like God
creates dinosaurs? Wait, no, no, hang on, it's the it's
the Jeff Goldbloom line where it's like, I know which
one you're talking about. Okay, I think it's like God

(05:21):
creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, Man creates dinosaurs,
dinosaurs kill man or something like that. I don't know.
But other than the like religious aspect of that, the
conceit of the film is that, oh, humans are playing
God and they created dinosaurs. But hey no we we

(05:42):
made all female dinosaurs so it's safe, right, Well, whoops
the diddles they change their sex and then start reproducing
out of control, and welcome, you are now being overrun
by work full of dinosaurs. And it spawned like ten
sequels or something or other and sore to come because

(06:03):
they just finished filming like the next one, they just
keep making. I like, how with the sequels are They're like,
We're just gonna keep making the dinosaurs bigger and that's
going to get more of an audience, like keep making
them bigger. It's true. I'm still watching. So yes, it works,
I mean because it worked out me at least planet
sized dinosaurs next, So yeah, I mean in the movie, uh,

(06:28):
they have all of this like foreshadowing of like, oh,
you know the famous line of like life, uh finds
a way And it turns out that these all female
dinosaurs figure out how to reproduce anyways, And the explanation
in the movie is that they had incomplete dinosaur DNA

(06:50):
from the sample that they got from amber, right, So,
like they get a mosquito an amber that sucked on
some sweet, juicy dinosaur blood and they use that DNA
to clone the dinosa sores, but they have some missing
DNA that wasn't able to be sequenced, so they used
West African frog DNA to fill in the DNA dino
gap and oops, it turns out that West African frogs

(07:13):
can change their sex and therefore the dinosaurs were able
to change their sex and have male dinosaurs than they
were able to reproduce. And then you know, Jeff Goldbloom
got to be smug while being shirtless and and so
on and so forth. I love that tidbit actually that
he said while being shirt Yeah, I mean he spent

(07:34):
most of the movie like without a shirt on and
being smokes you can always see his chest in some capacity, right,
which I do appreciate them recognizing that Jeff Goldbloom's main
asset is his chest. I guess. I mean, you know,
in this film it makes sense because Jeff Goldbloom is
a chaos theorist I believe, so, you know, like he's

(07:55):
really honestly there to just stir up trouble. And also
to every single human being and scientists who works at
this part, how dumb they are so like mostly that
is the purpose. I love that, like a chaos theorist, right,
like a physicist would be the bad boy because he
studies chaos. There's always like I mean, which actually, when

(08:19):
you think about it, is the least accurate thing, because
like I think, like a lot of physicists or kind
of kind of a kind of bad boys, you know,
Einstein was a bad boy. Though, I feel like I
I feel like in in this particular film is like
the cool Rider. Yes, I just made a grease to
reference because I adore it even more than Greece. But

(08:42):
he is like the cool rider of the group. Like
you know he I feel like he wears leather jackets,
you know, in his bed at night, and his hair
is perfectly quafft and you know he is giving you
the best one liners of the film. So yes, why
didn't you call me after last night? It's inch a
p bay be Anyways, So is this actually possible? Right?

(09:07):
Could you mix up some dino DNA with some frogs
and then suddenly have dinosaurs change their sex? Well, first,
let's talk about whether this even happens, right, Like, can
animals change their sex? And that part is absolutely true.
It is called sequential hermaphroditism, meaning that the organism changes

(09:29):
its sex at some point during its life. Now, this
may be due to environmental factors, social factors, or maturation
and timing. One of the most famous examples of this
is actually in clown fish. So, like finding Nemo, clownfish
have a very interesting social structure. There is a breeding

(09:50):
pair a male and female who live inside of an
an enemy see an enemy hate saying that word, don't
do it good, but they live in there for their
protection so their skin ha as uh. Some a resistance
to the sea an Enemy toxin and it protects them
from predators. But outside of the sea an Enemy there
are a few other clownfish, and these are smaller males

(10:15):
who are not sexually mature, who helped protect the breeding pair.
So it's like, you know, you have the king and
queen of the castle, the n enemy castle, and outside
you have these smaller males who are guards. If the
female dies, the male the dominant male, which is typically
the other half of the male pair. So imagine you
have a king and queen. The queen dies, the king

(10:38):
will change his sex to female, become the new queen,
and the head of the guard, the most dominant male
of the guard males, will then come and breed with
him and become the new king. Does that make sense? Yes,
I'm following the trail, but yet so. In other words,

(10:59):
the clownfish have a sexual hierarchy. The largest most dominant
fish is the female and is like basically the queen
that the mating uh female. If she leaves or dies,
the second most dominant fish will rise through the ranks
and become the new female, change its sex to be female,

(11:20):
become the breeding female, and then the next in line
then becomes the breeding male, like the king to the queen,
uh and so on and so forth. There are often
these kind of mating strategies where you have subordinates in
your mating system that are basically there to protect you,
protect your young, and they're just waiting for their chance

(11:41):
to rise through the ranks and become a part of
a breeding pair. But it's much more rare that you
actually have the system where they have sequential hermaphroditism where
they actually change sex. So that's really interesting. Yeah, I mean, honestly,
I wish I would have learned about this clown fish
while I was studying, you know, biology for all of

(12:01):
my degrees, because that's really really interesting. Like I love
that the dominant one is a woman and then you
know they change, um, they're formed it. Yeah, I love that.
I think it. Finding Nemo would have certainly been different
if they had taken that into account. Maybe they'll do
it for the next iteration, right, Like, so there's finding

(12:23):
Dory and then there's Finding Nemo. Three becoming Queen. I
love that title. We need it. So this happens in
clown fish, it actually happens in other species of fish
as well, uh, it happens in plants as well. Plants
do have technically have a sex, they are male and

(12:43):
female plants, but they can be sequential hermaphrodites. So it
does happen in a number of organisms. The question is
does it actually happen in frogs? So the answer is
a little bit complicated, so it's somewhat inconclusive. Now, there
is a case study of reed frogs which are from
West Africa, who were studied in captivity and they found

(13:05):
in the study in nineteen eighty nine that there were
a number of them that switched from being female to male.
So seven out of twenty four of them switched their
sex from being female to being male under these captive conditions. Now,
when animals are in captivity, as you may know, like
they act very differently than they do in the wild.

(13:27):
So you have a lot of behaviors, even physiological behaviors,
right like um changing your sex, which may not actually
happen in their natural environment. It could be because they're
in captivity there their social system is very different than
it would be in the wild. They could be under
um stress that would have stress, yeah, which would affect

(13:47):
their hormones and so that might be the reason. So
at the time, like in nine, like, we didn't really
have evidence that frogs outside of captivity did this in
any significant number. Um, But there is actually more recent
research that has found some evidence that frogs do do
this in the wild. I don't think there's been more

(14:09):
evidence on reed frogs, but there has been a different
species of frog that has been studied, the green frogs
of eastern North America, who have been found to change
their sex in the wild. Originally it was thought that
they only did this in response to pollution, but more
recently they found that even frogs in pristine, non polluted

(14:31):
environments do change their sex from female to male. Yeah,
there is some evidence that frogs can and will do
this in the wild. So that part, well, why why
would it so? For me, I'm just curious as to
why in polluted areas they would need to change their
second Like, Um, I don't know if there's something that

(14:52):
happened so like in that particular cases, because like a
male can survive that that type of environment a little
bit better than a female, Like, I guess I'm just
curious to know more about that. Yeah, it's an interesting question.
I'm not sure and I'm not sure like how conclusive
the study was, because it turns out even though they
thought it only happened in polluted areas, it turns out

(15:12):
it doesn't. So so that like even that premise of
like pollution somehow causes it is under question. It's not
it's not sure my guests would be pollution would potentially
affect like you know, there anything from like their hormones
to their development, their embryonic development. So I could see

(15:36):
like that having a direct chemical impact on their system
which might induce this change. But again, like it doesn't
seem that pollution may even be a significant factor. It's
it's still kind of unknown. The main takeaway from it
is that they will do this in nature even without pollution,

(15:56):
So and why they do it, right, I'll still do
it well there there may be stressors that we don't
really know, right, Like, so there could be it could
be like the clownfish, right where you have a hierarchy
where like if you have a certain sex ratio like
that they respond to and will change their sex based
on a sex ratio. It maybe due to like say resources,

(16:19):
like if there is a certain lack of resources, it
could be due to maturation, like they start off life
as female and later in life maybe become male. There
are all sorts of reasons that animals can change sex
and why they do it, and so it's still I
think the research is new enough that I'm not sure

(16:39):
they know exactly why they do that. If anyone's researching
this and wants to write in the show, definitely hit
me up about that, because I want to know what's
going on with these frogs. What's going seriously, I want
to know. So basically, though, the takeaway is it is
not exactly. But even if frog DNA could help dinosaurs

(17:03):
change their sex, here's the main issue I have with
the movie is it doesn't really make a lot of
sense to use frog DNA as filler and dinosaur DNA.
Now you're shaking your head, so I have a feeling
you already know where I'm going with this. I mean,
it doesn't make sense at all. But um, you know,
maybe the scientists in this film we're thinking, well, this

(17:24):
is all we have access to, the only thing we
have access to are these frogs from Africa, So like,
let's use this DNA. I'm guessing that's probably what they
were thinking, but it doesn't make it doesn't make sense.
I mean, I get that, like, frogs are kind of
alien looking, so maybe they would be you know, maybe
they're like prehistoric enough to be like dinosaurs. But that's

(17:44):
not really how genetics and and being related genetically works.
So frogs and other amphibians are not closely related to
dinosaurs at all. There are much better candidates of living
animals who are the most closely related to dinosaurs that
you could use. Uh, and like the main one being

(18:06):
the most obvious one being birds. Birds are dinosaurs. They
are literally still considered to be dinosaurs. They are direct
descendants of dinosaurs, and they are probably the closest living relative,
and their DNA is probably contains the most crossover with
extinct dinosaurs of any animal on Earth. And they have

(18:29):
a lot of good things going for them. First of all,
they are egg layers, so you can literally, like if
you had the technology to do so, you couldn't somehow, Uh,
take you know, a chicken. I'm just gonna say, take
a chicken. Do you artificial insemination or gene editing with

(18:49):
dinosaur DNA? Then it lays an egg and it hatches
a dinosaur. Now we are way far off from ever
being able to do that. But that's the most obvious
thing to me then, like creating an egg out of
nothing like or what did they do? They like took
ostrich eggs and like like that, we're already hatched and
put in like the injected it with like dinosaur DNA

(19:12):
that like had been mixed with frog stuff. I just think,
you you take you take a you take a bird,
and you you put you put bird and dinosaur together.
I mean, they're already hear me out, hear me out,
hear me out. I think. So it's interesting, and that's
why I actually love this topic because my scientist's brain agrees,

(19:32):
my writer's brain is like that would completely debunk the
entire film, right, because the whole premise is that the
scientists think they're doing something radical by creating these all
female dinosaurs, and then the dinosaurs slip on them, Well,
how many birds do we have that can just change
sex like that? They're probably thinking the frog. I think

(19:56):
what I hypothesize is that the writers of the film
found owned an easy animal target and they were like, oh, frogs, okay,
let's do that, because then it makes our story more
believable and most people watching are not going to think
anything of it, right, They're just like, oh, yeah, okay, sure,
you know you told me this happened. It happened. I
think it was in the book to the same thing

(20:16):
applies to the book, right, Like Michael Crichton is like,
how do we how do we get to this easiest way? Yeah,
what's the easiest way to maintain this conflict? Create it,
maintain it and make it somewhat believable and reasonable. And
to be fair, he's not entirely wrong. It just is
the most challenging thing to do. Like, the easiest thing
to do would just be go with birds. It's the

(20:38):
easiest thing to do. Always go with birds, is my philosophy.
I just I say. I say it like it's a
religious now go with birds. No. But here's the thing
that's frustrating, is I agree with you? Right, Like, if
this was their only way to make the plot work, fine,
put some kermit DNA in a dinosaur whatever. But there

(21:00):
is another option for them to have the same plot
that's much more scientifically accurate and much more interesting in
my opinion. And that's because birds can do something called parthenogenesis,
which is incredible. So while it's unlikely. We don't have
sequential hermaphroditism in birds. What we do have is birds

(21:24):
who can have secret virgin birds like Jesus I was
like like the virgin Mary. So even if you can
have the same plot, right, scientists create dinosaurs, they put
them inside a chicken because that makes the most sense,
or a turkey, I don't know, or an ostrich or whatever.

(21:45):
You take a bird, you mix bird with dinosaur DNA
because birds is birds is dinosaurs. You guys, birds is dinosaurs,
and then you have your little baby and you have
your all female dinosaurs. But birds have been documented to
be able to do parthenae genesis, where females reproduce by
basically just giving a virgin birth without any necessary input

(22:12):
from males. So we're just gonna have like these spontaneous
babies popping up from these virgin dinosaurs and they are
just going to baby maybe, honestly, in that case, we
probably would have had like three times the amount of dinosaurs. Honestly. Well,
so let's talk a little bit about parthenogenesis, because it's

(22:34):
something that sounds made up, sounds like it shouldn't be real,
but it totally is. Now admittedly it's very very rare
in birds, but it's less rare in reptiles. Now, reptiles
are not descended from dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are not descended from
modern day reptiles. Um. Dinosaurs and reptiles both share a

(22:56):
common ancestor, but dinosaurs are as much a reptile as
like mammals are reptiles. We all evolved from a common
ancestor that was a reptile like tetrapod um. But you know,
dinosaurs and reptiles are somewhat related, much more related than
dinosaurs and frogs frankly, uh like in terms of their

(23:19):
related nous. It's like the living um the living animals
that are most related to dinosaurs ago like from birds,
the next up would be reptiles or actually no birds,
then crocodilians, then would be reptiles, then actually mammals including humans,
and then finally that they are would then share common

(23:43):
ancestor with frogs, uh and then after that fish. So yeah,
they really with the frog dan. I don't know, man,
I don't know about the frog DNA stuff, but I mean, listen,
it's where we're at, so you know, it's like it
is what it is. They definitely had better options, Michael,
and talking to you, you definitely had better options. And

(24:03):
whoever the consulting you know, writers and producers and you
know scientific consultants that they use, we all agree you
had better options. Maybe they were just leaving the door
open for a Jurassic Park Muppets crossover with like Kermit
the Frog be like, oh my god, son, is that
you you're a dinosaur? I mean, honestly, or you know,

(24:23):
we've talked about how there are what feels like one
million other Jurassic Park films that come after this. You know,
I don't know, there's one coming out. Is it this
year or next year? I'm not sure because obviously with
COVID that times have shifted. But there's one coming out soon.
They've already finished filming it, and maybe that one will
have some giant frogs. I mean, we don't know, we

(24:44):
don't know, you don't know what. We don't know what's coming.
It could be giant frogs. I mean, it could just
be in real life giant frogs. Honestly would not be
the most shocking thing to happen in these times. But
so my whole point about like talking about the relatedness
is that dinosaurs are more related to reptiles than they
are to frogs, and reptiles are known to have frequent parthenogenesis,

(25:07):
or at least, if not frequent, more frequently than you
would think. There are species of lizards that are all
female who reproduce by reshuffling their DNA. So these are
called New Mexico whiptail lizards. They are just kind of
first off, that's the best name, whiptails. I know, right,
it's badass. It's like, you know, you think about this

(25:28):
all female species of lizard like Amazonian warriors, and they're
just like whipping their tails. It's great. I feel like
that would be a fantastic eighties rock I'd love yes.
And you have like really long ponytails that you just
like whip around. I love it. Yeah, we've actually talked
about the whiptail lizards on the show before, but just

(25:49):
a quick recap. They are all female. They reproduce by
just shuffling their DNA. They actually have three pairs of
chromosomes that they can shuffle around, and that way they
can reproduce, not through cloning, which is often the case
with like a sexual reproduction. You just basically create a
clone of yourself. Um, But they actually don't create exact clones.

(26:10):
They shuffle their DNA and that helps them to diversify
their genetics and make the species more robust to like
disease and evolutionary pressures. Um. They do hump each other,
not to not to have sex, but to stimulate ovulation
because these these lizards used to reproduce sexually in a

(26:31):
mutation occurred which gave them three pairs of chromosomes and
allowed them to basically have these parthenogenic birds. So yeah,
so these lizards can reproduce without males at all. Lizard feminism. Yeah,
they're definitely living in the myscra. Yes, yes, the Amazonian

(26:52):
You've got wonder woman just as a lizard, you know,
with the little with the little bracelets, the lasso. Truth
is your tail. Um. So you could have said that
they used reptile DNA for these dinosaurs, But like I
teased before, birds actually have been known to very rarely

(27:13):
have parthenogenesis occur. So in turkeys and chickens, which I
know they don't seem like dinosaurs. I know they seem
very far from dinosaurs, but they are technically dinosaurs and
they have been documented to have basically a female laying
an unfertilized egg that develops into an embryo and on occasion,

(27:38):
rare occasion, actually reaches uh development, is hatched and can
actually grow into an adult. So typically in cases of
parthenogenesis and birds, it's like an embryo starts to develop
and then it it basically can't can no longer develop,
it's not viable. They don't survive. And it's interesting that

(28:00):
that occurs in domestic birds that we've seen this first
of all, probably because there's the most observations of them,
like the most like observing of their hatching, because they're
on a farm. So that's probably why we catch it
in those we have like the most, they're the most
frequent subject matter exactly, So the most observations, the most
likely we're going to catch it. But also it could

(28:20):
be through selective breeding causing some genetic shenanigans that that
we weren't aware of. And also probably when farmers would
notice this happening, they would try to breed them more,
you know, get more of these chickens to see if
they could reproduce it. So I think it's mostly been
documented in turkeys. There may have been like one case

(28:41):
in chickens or something, but really it's mainly turkeys for
whatever reason, and they will lay an unfertilized egg that
mutates from being diploid, meaning two sets of chromosomes were diploid.
You and I are diploid. Everyone's diploid. That probably all
your friends to everyone you probably know is diploid. Maybe maybe,

(29:02):
But then they mutate from starting out as deploid to
being haploid, meaning only one set of chromosomes. Um Interestingly,
the offspring is always male. Uh. And this has something
to do with the way that turkey chromosomes are. It's
not like human chromosomes where females are XX and males

(29:22):
are X. Why Like in turkeys its males are like
w W and females are like w B. I don't
know females are the w B, but yeah, So so
there's some reason that with turkey genetics that I don't
personally know too deeply about, but somehow in these parthenogenic birds,

(29:46):
the offspring is always male. And so if you had
a Jurassic Park where you use turkey DNA to fill
in dinosaur DNA, because turkeys are probably one of the
closest relatives of dinosaurs a live today, and then they
gave birth to um a virgin birth to a male,

(30:07):
and those males grew up and started breeding with other females.
You could have a Jurassic Park situation that is totally
scientifically plausible, scientifically accurate, and also but where would the
fund be in that? Like Jurassic Park? Right, it's just
sounds so cool, like, oh, we got frog DNA. Then like, yeah,

(30:28):
we we inseminated a turkey. They're gonna be like who
I probably thinking, you know, we can't use turkeys because
people are just so used to eating them and it
would just blow their minds and they just wouldn't feel
comfortable watching a film where their beloved turkey or their

(30:48):
beloved chicken was used. There, like we need to go
frog to make all of the viewers more comfortable with
this crazy idea. I guess so, although for me, I
guess I'm a little perverse because like it just makes
me wonder how dinosaurs tasted. Probably good, good, right, I
mean a little dry. It's not like you know, some

(31:12):
of our ancestors didn't try them. I mean I mean
you mean like I don't know, I don't know, like
I guess are really way back ancestors like Shrews are
shrew are true ancestors. Probably nibbled on some dino carcasses. Oh,
I think for sure. I think once a dinosaur died.

(31:34):
I mean, like honestly, back then, everything was very gay, right,
So I mean I definitely feel like they've tried some dnata.
I love the idea of like Shrew's like chewing up
on a t Rex carcass and being like, it's a
little dry. It's good, it's good, but it's a little dry,
like a little dry, and then you know, maybe putting
it over the fire a little bit and just you know,
getting it to the right level of crispiness. I feel like,

(31:56):
I don't know every day, I don't think shrews had
discovered fire. Oh maybe not yet, you're right, right, unless
it was by accidents like a lightning strike, you know,
hit a dinosaur and the Shrews had this barbecue dinosaur
and they're like, this is actually really good. It makes
me want to evolve bumps, so I can like hold

(32:18):
salt and pepper. Oh my gosh, you know, salt and pepper.
My goodness. It didn't come until way later. They were
probably just like let's eat this as it is and
see what happens. I know, but I can't even imagine.
I do like the idea of a shrew wanting to
like the evolutionary pressure being on the shrew to like
be able to hold seasoning. Yes, who knows what they

(32:40):
were doing. I mean, honestly knows what. It's kind of
fascinating to be honest, I know, who knows what those
shrews were up to. Maybe they had a little true
society they had to it was just they I mean,
you know, I imagine you know, it was a lot
of maybe it was a lot of partying. Who knows,
We don't know. You know, it's like there are no jobs,
there's no economy. Probably a lot of trying to warn

(33:02):
the dinosaurs about them pending meteors, because like all the
little mams have like made bunkers and the dinosaurs did
in the dinosaurs are like, no, it's never gonna happen,
and then that's why yeah exactly, So yeah, um I think,
but yeah, so Jurassic Park, you should have used turkeys.
So when we get back, we're going to talk about

(33:25):
the star of the movie, uh, the t Rex and
talk about whether some of the things they talk about
in the movie are actually true or if it's slander
and liberal liberal libel libel against is it? It would
be slander though, right because it's spoken slander, slander against

(33:45):
t rexes. We'll be your back. Are dinosaurs reptiles? What
about crocodiles or birds? What even are reptiles? The answer
to this question is a lot trickier than you might think.
If you look up dinosaurs and crocodiles, you'll notice that
they're technically classified as reptiles, but oddly enough, birds are not.

(34:07):
And this is odd because phylogenetically, that is, the evolutionary
tree shows that birds are direct ancestors of dinosaurs. In fact,
they really are modern day dinosaurs and crocodiles, and birds
are much more closely related than crocodiles and say lizards, snakes, turtles,
or other modern day reptiles. So why do crocs and

(34:29):
dinosaurs get pigeonholed as reptiles instead of you know, pigeons, Well,
they did evolve from a reptile like ancestor, but so
did mammals, and we don't typically refer to mammals as
furry reptiles. The reason behind this confusing categorization is that
there are actually two systems of classification used for animals,

(34:51):
the Linnean system and the phylogenetic system. The phylogenetic system
categorizes animals based on their evolutionary path. Meanwhile, the Linnean
system is named after Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish biologist of
the early seventeen hundreds. He developed a system to classify
animals and plants, putting them into categories based on observation. Unfortunately,

(35:15):
the system was not entirely scientific at first lineas thought
reptiles and amphibians basically belonged in the same group. But
almost a century later, along comes Darwin and shakes the
whole system up. Evolutionary theory gives us a new way
to classify animals, not just on observable or superficial qualities,

(35:35):
but their evolutionary path, and in the nineteen forties bilogenetic
classification became more standard. Regardless, we haven't completely ditched the
Linnean system of classification, and still sometimes group animals based
on observable traits, such as reptiles. Reptiles are loosely defined
as cold blooded, air breathing vertebrates. But here's where it

(35:58):
gets kind of tricky. Sure, you could say that crocodiles
fit the bill, as they are cold blooded, scaly animals,
So maybe reptiles, despite the fact that phylogenetically there are
about as much a reptile as a bird is. But
as for dinosaurs, can you really say they're scaly, cold
blooded animals? New evidence points towards dinosaurs not being cold blooded,

(36:21):
meaning they weren't always ectothermic relying on outside temperature to
regulate their body heat. Instead, they may have been somewhat
medium blooded, so to speak, using both internal and external
heat sources to regulate their temperature. There's also plenty of
evidence of dinosaurs having feathers instead of or along with scales,

(36:43):
Thus classifying them as reptiles may be misleading in terms
of understanding what dinosaurs really were, how they looked, and
how they behaved. Speaking of which, when we return, we're
going to investigate the truth behind the King of the
Dinosaurs and whether is Dinah got a fair shake in
Jurassic Park. I wonder if at Jurassic Park they have

(37:14):
these um dinosaur themes snacks, you know, that would be interesting,
Like you have you not only bring back the dinosaurs
as attractions, but you just like you cook and eat them. Oh,
I meant like, this is really beef jerky, but we're
gonna call it not. But it's available for you to

(37:38):
consume as you, you know, go through the parking sites.
I thought you meant like farming some like actual you
have some leo pluridan farms where you fish for them
and you you make some Oh my gosh, I can't
even imagine what that. But also they would never want
to do that, because remember they created this park. Honestly,

(38:03):
you know, he lies and he basically tries to make
everyone believe John Hammond tries to make everyone believe he's
doing it as a sanctuary animal, but really he's just
trying to get rid because it's the most insane idea
because like in later movies, don't they sort of a
shoe a lot of the these purported morals of the
earlier movies, And yes there are there are no morals

(38:23):
because really the whole entire ideas morally corrupt. You want
to do this, and then also he doesn't care about humans,
not for real. When the first you know, at the
very beginning of the film, um one of the workers dies,
you know, basically he just tries to cover it ice
like John Hammond was a monster. Yeah, true, it was.

(38:44):
Was the t Rex the monster or was it John Hammond? Oh,
it was definitely John. I think the humans are the
ones that are you know, at fault here because the
technically the animals are innocent because they did not ask
to be created. Our dad, you didn't ask for all
of the foolishness to be you know, to use this

(39:07):
frog d n A come up with this. They didn't
ask for it, right, They're just they're just being dinosaurs.
Speaking of which, we're going to talk about the t
Rex and what the movie claims about the t Rex
and how they get it all wrong. So the most
one of the most famous lines from the movie is
like when they're being hunted, it's uh, oh, you know

(39:27):
the kids and and the good guys scientists. Sam Deal's
character doctor doctor Grant, Doctor Grant and those two little
brats that he's got it. Actually, they're nice kids in
the movie, and I know that they're supposed to be. Yeah,
they're really good kids. They're just a little annoying, they're
a little extra, but they're good kids. But yeah, so so, uh,

(39:49):
they're trying to not get eaten by the t rex
and Dr Grant tells them, you know, remain perfectly still.
The t rex's vision is based on movement, so they
try to not panic and stay still. So the question
is this true, like, is the t rex's division based
on movement? Which short answer no, long answer, No, you

(40:14):
would definitely get eaten by the t rex. Long answer,
you really actually are not safe any capacity. If the
t rex is near, you will die immediately, and that
is the long answer. No long answer. Run even though
they're still gonna catch up to you and you'll still

(40:35):
be eaten, but at least fun because at least you
feel like you try. Actually you know, they're running speed
may not have been super fast, so a human who
has a lot of endurance and ability to to sprint
and then continue to run may have actually stood a
chance against a t rex even though we weren't alive
at the same time. UM, I feel like that would
probably be a child and not necessarily like in this

(40:57):
instance in the film. I definitely think for Grant would
just die because I don't think he still has that
type of you know, agility that he used to but
the kids may be able to survive because they're young,
they're agile um and you know, they have a lot
of energy to be able to like their bones their
bones are still bandy. They can they can survive a
few chumps from a t rex, just the couple. But

(41:23):
it's in an interesting question because like, how do we know,
like how t rex's eyesight is. We don't have a
live t rex to like have an eye chart and
be like, all right, start with the first row and
go down and and keep going. You know, like you
can't you can't test a living t rex's vision. So
you have to do it based on anatomical evidence of
the fossils that we have. So what's really interesting is

(41:45):
after Jurassic Park screen back in the eighties, I forgot
what year was eighty What was it? You mean when
the first film? Yeah? When was that? Was it eighties
or no? No, that was the nineties. It was nineteen
the first film. Wow, okay, yeah, so back in the
nine Yeah, after it's screened, um Professor Kent Stevens at

(42:09):
the University of Oregon started Project dino morph, which was
an attempt to model dinosaur anatomy and learn more about dinosaurs.
So Project dino morph studied t rex goals using the
ice socket anatomy to estimate t rex's visual field depth
perception in binocular range, and the project found that the

(42:34):
t rex's vision was probably just as good as, if
not better than a hawks, which is very good. Yeah,
that's really good, very good. Bad news if you are
anything smaller than a t rex at the time, which
was basically everything. So even more evidence points towards good

(42:54):
t rex vision. Their ancestors got bigger eyes as they
closer and closer to being t rex is, so the
t rex eyes uh enlarged, which emphasized that they probably
were using them um and selective pressures were making their
eyesight better. Their overall facial structure indicates good visions, so

(43:16):
that it was optimized for for visions. So they have
front facing eyes like a lot of predators, so that
you have good depth perception and visual acuty in front
of you, unlike prey animals that have eyes on the
side of their heads that instead of selecting four lepth
perception and visual accuracy, it's for the widest range of
vision that you can do. So if you're prey animal,

(43:38):
you have more of a three sixty view of the world,
but it's not as accurate. That way, you can try
to detect as many predators as possible, even if it's
blurry and you're not quite sure where it is, because
your goal is to run away, not to catch the predator.
But a predator's goal is to actually land a blow
on the prey. So their vision is front face racing,

(44:00):
which affords them better depth perception, um, much more accuracies
for the actual pounds. And that's the case with the
t rex skulls. So they have front facing huge eyes
and they also had a face that got narrow and
the chink bones sunk down, which emphasized the fact that
they probably their bone structure was optimized for expanding their

(44:23):
field of vision in front of them, which meant they
had great eyesight. And those kids would have been screwed.
I mean literally everyone would have been right. Also, can
I just say when you first started, I was like
nervous because I was like, this is the University of
Oregon doing, Like what were and what type of researcher? Well,

(44:44):
they got some dinosaur DNA from some mosquito poop or whatever. Yeah,
it was like, um, you know we don't need another
John Hammond on our hands. I mean, there are de
extinction projects, but so far they're mainly focused on things
passenger pigeons, not not any real movement to try to

(45:04):
de extinct dinosaurs yet, he learned last year. I feel like,
I don't know we might be going on. I would
I feel like I would rather us get killed by
our dinosaur creations than like nukes or like a pandemic,
you know what I mean, Like it would be cooler.

(45:26):
It would be a cooler way for I don't think
I have comfort in the I mean I think like
probably the next obvious thing to come maybe maybe the dinosaurs.
But I don't think I feel comfortable, you know, with
us losing our lives to either. But I guess I mean,
you're right, is it better than a meteor like acent

(45:47):
I'm going to say it would be cooler for there
to be a dinosaur apocalypse than a nuclear apocalypse. I know,
like a lot of movers are like, oh, nuclear apocalypse,
that's so cool. It would suck. It would just be
a bunch of people sick with radiation, poisoning a lot
of like starvation. It would just be super depressing and
super dark, whereas dinosaur apocalypse fun and exciting, like, you know,

(46:12):
at least terrifying. Yes, but at least it's not as
depressing as the nuclear apocalypse. Well, I'm thinking it's better
than a zombie apocalypse, because who wants you know, your
friends turned into zombies trying to also get you determined
zombie dinosaur apocalypse your opinions on? No, Okay, I'm thinking

(46:37):
maybe maybe. Anyways, all apocalypses are bad, but dinosaurs are interesting. So, um,
where did this myth come from in terms of like, oh,
they can only sense movement? Now, this may have been
explored more in the book. I haven't actually read the book.
Full disclosure, I appologize the myth may have come from frogs. Again,

(47:00):
it's those dang frogs. So frogs do have a little
bit of trouble seeing prey unless it's moving. It's not
true that they're like completely blind, uh like if the
prey isn't moving, It's just that they're hunting style and
their eyesight is uh attuned mostly to movements, So like,

(47:21):
seeing prey move around, they it's much easier for them
to lock onto it. But they aren't blind if like,
if they see something right in front of them, and
it's like right there, and they know it's there even
if it's not moving, Like even as much as like
a little twitch of the antenna of the insects probably
gonna be enough to alert them that something's there. But yeah,
in terms of like they're hunting, they are cognitively primed

(47:45):
to like, uh, pounce on something that's moving and there
there's in fact, like these really funny videos of of
frogs with an iPad and you have bugs moving around
on the screen and they, you know, flip out their
tongue and try to eat the things on the screen
because they're like kiddies, like little amphibious kiddies. So what
you're saying is Jurassic Park is not entirely incorrect. Like

(48:06):
Dr Grant was not entirely incorrect when he told the
kids to be still, because what he was referencing was
part of the frog DNA that made it. You know, like, Okay,
they can only you know, if you're out of their
field of vision then you'll be fine. I just I
still don't really buy it because even if they have

(48:27):
frog DNA, they still have giant eyeballs, right, It didn't
affect their like if you had a t rex with
like a frog head, right, which I love actually and
now that I say it, actually it sounds terrifying great
the big old tongue, then I'd be like, yeah, okay,
this like horrifying kermit t rex like hybrid. Maybe it's

(48:48):
vision really is mostly a tune to movement, but like
it had the anatomy of a t rex, so I
don't see any reason why its eyes just wouldn't work
like or it would just be too dumb to will
be able to see the person. And even if it's
eyesight like, even if it like had some eyesight problem,
needs some big old dinosaur glasses, which would actually be

(49:08):
really cute. There is anatomical evidence that points towards t
rex have wring really good senses of smell and hearing.
So they had a huge old factory bulb, which is
the scent organ, which they can tell by the cavity
in their skull where that would make room for the
the old factory bulb, so that meant they probably had
a really cute sense of smell. They also had really

(49:30):
long cochlear bones, so the cochlear bones are in the
inner ear and living animals that have long cochlear bones
also have really good hearing, so they probably could see
really well better than a hawk. They could probably hear
really well, they could smell really well. It's just bad news.
It's bad news if you are on the receiving end

(49:50):
of their attention overall. I mean, yes, but you know, again,
in this world of Jurassic Park where we can just
create anything, they're saying basically all of the well not
all of the shortcomings, but they're going to attribute the
you know, dinosaurs shortcomings to the frog real scapegost scape

(50:12):
frogs situation, I think. And either that or Jim Hinton
is a secret producer. Those are the only two options
that we have. You gotta you gotta have more frogs
in it. Again, I think they were like looking for
a Muppets Jurassic Park crossover, so they had to like
put in as many like bread crumbs towards frogs as
they could so they could have a whole plot with

(50:33):
like Kermit the Frog, you know, having to go to
Jurassic Park and build a relationship with these dinosaurs like
it's me, I'm your father. Personally, I would watch Hermit
talking to dinosaurs. What you're feeling you know it will
be true. Another this didn't really come from Jurassic Park,

(50:54):
but this is a myth about t rex Is that
I've seen, like in the media that like they weren't
actually like terms, they were timid scavengers. No, no short answer,
no long answer, No, no, no, they were. They certainly
were not above scavenging. Of course, they probably ate some

(51:14):
dead triceratops carcass when they could get it, Like why
why wouldn't they? I mean, even lions scavenge when they can,
you know, so predators will scavenge when they can living
predators that we observe today. But that doesn't mean that
they don't hunt as well. And everything that we know
about t rex Is points towards them being hunters, and
we have falsil evidence of it. So not only is

(51:36):
the anatomical evidence suggestive of of being a hunter, that
they're optimized for hunters. Like we we talked about those
front facing good eyes, really good hearing, really good sense
to smell, those big thighs for days, you know, just
amazing legs for running. And even though they couldn't run
like super fast, they could probably run fast enough to

(51:57):
catch up to a slower dinosaur and and you know,
probably like if they definitely caught something off guard, they
could probably catch up to them. So yeah, and let's
be fair, they still look good doing it, no matter
how mean. God did not skip leg day, did skip
arm day significantly. So but really the most conclusive evidence

(52:23):
is that there's fossil evidence showing that t rex teeth
are embedded in healing tissue of dinosaurs, which means basically,
they try to chomp down on a living dinosaur the
dinosaur escaped um and chip their teeth in the process,
and then that tooth got embedded in their flesh and
then there are healing scars around it, like bone scars

(52:45):
and tissue scars around it, and then we have the
falsil evidence of that. So we know that t rex
is had of chomped down on some living dinosaurs, which
suggests they were hunting, you know. So uh, but you know,
it's not untrue that they scavenge. They did scavenge. I mean,
like we said, like, you gotta do what you gotta do.

(53:06):
You gotta hustle back in dinosaur times, I have to
be a fierce warrior pettitor at all costs in everything
so they were doing it all for sure. Uh. And
then the other thing, like there are things about like, well,
did t rexes have feathers where they're basically giant chickens.
So this is I love the idea of t rex
is being giant chickens, but I can't imagine them with feathers.

(53:32):
That would be terrifying, I think, and the interest of science.
Though I'm going to try to give as unbiased to pictures,
I can't even though I personally definitely want them to
be covered in feathers. So baby t rex is, there's
good reason to believe they probably had feathers. Um Paleontologists
believe that one of the purposes of dinosaur feathers, maybe

(53:53):
the primary purpose was insulation for warmth. This was long
before feathers were ever used for flight, and back when
the feathers were used for warmth, they were more like
these long filaments, fluffy down like a baby penguin or
a kiwi bird. Uh, not the flat feathers that you
see in birds that use them for flight. I mean

(54:14):
with a lot of flightless birds, you see this this
kind of They have developed the filaments more the the
downy warmer feathers now like like ostriches and em is.
They're they're like little puff balls. They're not they don't
have many of the you know, big fan like feathers
that we see in birds of flight. So the idea
of a big t rex just covered in feathers is

(54:35):
maybe a little far fetched. Adult t rex is probably
didn't need the feathers. Like they were huge. They didn't
need probably didn't need them for any kind of like
armor protection. They're just so big. They had thick hides um,
and they didn't need them for warmth because they were
so big. A big animal like that is able to
generate warmth a lot more efficiently than a little baby. Yeah,

(54:57):
I'm curious as to kind of wet stage they would have,
you know, kind of dropped the feathers and moved more
towards that traditional um more like rubbery type high. I mean,
they probably they probably like started molting as like larger juveniles.
They gained weight and size extremely quickly. They start you know,

(55:20):
started out as like these skinny like almost like smaller
than a turkey, little cutie things. I actually have a
picture of that in the dock if you want to see.
They're very cute. Um, just the artistic renditions of them
with with puffy feathers. They probably started out as as
peri adorable teeth and then except for the teeth, sure,
but then probably as they got bigger and bigger, they

(55:42):
probably went through a molting stage. I mean we see
that with like, um, penguins start out as these little
downy puff balls, and while they don't lose their feathers
as adults, they do uh molt and have feathers that
are optimized for swimming rather than just for warmth as
they are as a little baby. That's so adorable how
the penguins like their their feathers then kind of mold

(56:05):
into the shape of their body and they're a bit
more form fitting to allow. Yeah, it is cute. They
started as poofballs and then they get get their formal
taxes on as they reach adulthood. So adult t rex
is maybe they had a smattering of feathers. Um most
of these sort of like skin imprints that that have

(56:27):
been found, like doesn't seem to be suggestive of there
being a lot of feathers on the t rex, but
you know, I can imagine like maybe they retain some
of the feathers like in places where like maybe around
the eyes, like that would be potentially useful for like
keeping dust out of their eyes. They you know, may
have had a few like here and there. Maybe they
had some colorful feathers for sexual selection. There's just not

(56:50):
any like proof of that yet, so it's possible, but
I think, like most of the evidence seemed to suggest
like that they probably lost most of of feathers as
adults simply because they didn't need them, and we don't
really most of the evidence doesn't seem to suggest that
they had a bunch of feathers um. But there is
a dinosaur that is very similar to a t rex

(57:12):
that we do think had a lot of feathers. So
this is the Uterannus, which means feathery king, some mix
of Latin and Mandarin, and they were uh predecessors to
t rexes and they were likely covered in feathers as falsil.
Evidence seems to suggest they lived in a cooler climate.

(57:35):
They were smaller than a t rex, although still pretty big,
so they were about seven to eight meters or twenty
six feet in length, but a t rex was about
twelve meters or forty feet in length. So they were smaller.
They lived in a cooler climate, which probably made the
feathers as adults more useful in keeping them warm. It's

(57:57):
interesting because they have they look like they have like
almost kind of like a fox furn that in the back,
like fox fur in the back, and then more kind
of those traditional feathers that you would imagine at the
head and the neck at the beast. Yeah, I think
that it's it's I'm not sure how much these artistic
renditions are based on like guests work, how much of

(58:18):
it is based on the fossil record. Um. I think
it seems like to me, the downy feathers that look
more like fur than feathers is probably pretty accurate. And
the face feathers, like I just it seems like very
reasonable to assume that there may have been some colorful
face feathers for like sexual selection or identification. Um, they

(58:41):
may have have had different like textures of feathers based
on where it was in their bodies. I don't know
how much they know about the feathers. They just know
that they had. It's hard to know the accuracy right exactly,
but we do know that they had these like these
downy feathers, and it was probably all over their body.
But yeah, they're they're kind of kind of cute, a
little scary, just like a little fluffy They don't you

(59:02):
know what, Honestly, I mean, looking at this artistic rendition,
they don't look that menacing to me. I mean it's
the obviously, like the claws are, but the faces. Yeah,
to me, somehow, the fuzziness, the furriness of it makes
them less menacing. I mean it softens them. Their their
legs actually remind me of a snowy owl um. Oh

(59:27):
fluff of the leg fluff of a snowy owl um.
But yeah, I mean they probably were menacing. I think
they were predators and they probably would eat up They're
Like when I say they're smaller than a t rex,
they're still incredibly large and scary, right, I mean, smaller
is relative because naturally the t rex is kind of

(59:48):
in competition with itself when it comes to size. But yeah,
I mean this picture obviously clearly it's not menacing because
I'm not standing there right exactly. Like if I were
up against this, then truly I would probably be terrified.
I mean, it would be a little cute, you know,
like as it's munching off your arm, It's like, ah,

(01:00:09):
but you're fuzzy. I'd be a little bit. I feel
a little bit more, you know, um comfortable with the
idea of getting one of my limbs chewed off by
this adorably. I don't think so. I don't think so.
I think I would still be a terrified. So if
dinosaurs had feathers for warmth and then birds started using

(01:00:30):
them for flight, what's up with flightless birds? Are they
dinosaurs who never quite evolved flight? What the heck is
their deal? Well, sometimes evolution will go back to earlier schematics,
so to speak, when the need arises. Take whales please.
They started out as land dwelling mammals then went back
to the sea like our ancient aquatic fishy ancestors. DNA

(01:00:53):
evidence of flightless birds shows a similar pattern. Ostriches, EMUs rays,
and kiwi birds all seem to have evolved from an
ancestral bird who could fly and importantly dispersed to new continents. Penguins, too,
are the descendants of flighted birds, and their ancestor was

(01:01:13):
likely similar to a living aquatic bird. The thick billed mur,
a black and white Alaskan bird that basically looks like
a slimmer penguin with wings that can actually fly. Why
did these birds ditch the superpower of flight? Well, fline
takes time and energy, and if you don't have to
do it, say because you lack. Predators have the powerful

(01:01:36):
defenses of an ostrich or the nimble swimming ability of
the penguin, the ground and sea can offer plenty of
opportunities for survival. When we returned, we're going to talk
about a feathery dinosaur who didn't quite make the cut
for appearing in Jurassic Park but definitely should have. So

(01:02:01):
I feel like t Rex velociraptor triceratops like these are
the dinosaurs that get like all of the media attention,
all of the limelight, And I feel like there should
be other dinosaurs that get more attention because they're cool
and weird. And I want to give some love and

(01:02:22):
attention to a dinosaur that I think is relatively unknown.
It's super weird. It is called dino cirrus. So. The
Dinochius lived during the Late Cretaceous period about seventy million
years ago. They were a genius genius. They were a
genus of ornitham Mimosauria, which is also known as ostrich

(01:02:47):
dinosaurs because a lot of the species were sort of
ostrich like just superficially. But this genus, the dinochirus, I
don't really see the resemblance to ostriches. So they were large,
you don't, I am media really I immediately thought that, yes, interesting,
interesting to me. They're too like, they're too camel like

(01:03:09):
to look like ostriches to me. But maybe I guess, yeah,
maybe I can see a little bit. To me, it's
like an ostrich ant eater dinosaurs. That's okay, I see
that a little bit. Yeah, So they were big. They
were eleven meters or thirty six ft long and over
six tons. So dinochius is Greek for horrible hands. So

(01:03:35):
they're the horrible hands dinosaur. And I guess it's because
they had horrible hands. I mean, they had some of
the longest arms of any bipedal dinosaur. Their arms were
two point five meters long or eight feet long. Why
do they have horrible hands over the t r I
don't know. I definitely would say the t rex has worse.

(01:03:55):
Maybe we're like horrible as in bad at being hands,
but maybe they meant horrible as in horrifying, like scary hands.
I want to call it the jazz hands dinosaur though, because,
like you know, it's got those long arms, perfect for
jazz hands. So they had enlarged vertebrae on their back

(01:04:17):
that formed a hump or a sale. It had a hard,
wide bill and probably fan like feathers at the end
of its tail, so kind of like some kind of
like a spoonbill or or a shoe bill stork with
a with a camel hump and a long tail with
like feathers on the end. It was probably an omnivore,

(01:04:39):
eating fish, plants and anything it could fit in its bill,
like some kind of weird like giant humpbacked stork. So
basically like have you ever seen a shoe bill stork? Yeah? Yeah,
with those big, big bills. They're kind of they're kind
of spooky looking. Sometimes they're just they're so tall. But
just give it some big arms, um make it huge

(01:05:02):
with big meaty legs and a humpback, and there you go.
That's probably what it looked like. I mean, I don't
find this particular dinosaur to be as menacing, Like there
is something I think it's probably because of you know,
it's knows that it it. I don't know, it just

(01:05:23):
is like to me, it doesn't feel like, um, it's
outer appearance doesn't match its predatory nature, if that makes sense.
Like it definitely just feels a little bit like more common.
I feel like if I were up against you know,
this eleven meter dinosaur, I would probably like it's still
kind of cute, you know. I mean, it's obviously very large,

(01:05:45):
but it's cute. I think it doesn't scare me as
much as there's a little bit of the Uncanny Valley
of this looks like a Muppet, but like a huge Muppet,
which is weird, like why we're like fully invested in
these dinosaurs being every Like I come to it a
lot on the show where it's like, this is a Muppet,

(01:06:06):
Like there's so much I guess just like Muppets are
so like the Muppet universe is so vast that you
can always find an animal that's like, hey, this is
this is like a Muppet. It's a Muppet source Rex.
But it's like it's like Snuffle up againts mixed with
big bird kind of you know, yes, yes, definitely snuffle
off again for sure, definitely getting this big duck bill

(01:06:31):
and like long feathery arms. It's just like it is
kind of cute. Don't mind. I don't mind the hands,
but the hands remind me. And this is gonna sound
real off because I'm not comparing it to another animal.
But you know the machines when you're a little kid,
the claw it's called the cloth. That's what your hands
remind me. You're right, because it's got three fingers, like

(01:06:54):
those horrible claw machines that never give you prizes because
never anything rigged. Yeah, no, I mean it is. It's
just an It's an awkward and odd looking dinosaur. I
think like people have a very specific image in mind
when they think about dinosaurs, but they're all these like
oddball dinosaurs that just look weird and interesting. And I

(01:07:19):
love it, Like I love this guy so much, Like
I want to see I want to see it in
a movie. Uh, come to life, Like I'm tired of
only seeing like velociraptors and t rex and you know
brontosaurs like like those are great, those are all great,
but like, give give us, give us some weirdos. You know,

(01:07:41):
it's only we would have recorded this prior to them
shooting Jurassic World dominion, right, I mean, we could have
possibly gotten some of these dinosaurs, these lesser known dinosaurs
that don't get as much love and appreciation we may
you could have gotten them in the although maybe the

(01:08:02):
latterman post you know, like these mostly post right, because
like you know, it's all it's all c g I
I don't think that, and apparently it's not coming out
until now, so technically they have a full year petition
petition the movie to put the Dinochius in the movie

(01:08:24):
and post yes, I mean it would to be fair,
it would be Cretaceous Park, not Jurassic Park. But still
like they did, they did like genetic Shenanigans, mixing frogs
with like dinosaurs, and in the newer movies they did
like hybrids that were giant, like you can throw in
a cretaceous dinosaur. Come on, yeah, I was gonna say,

(01:08:44):
it doesn't really matter, because what we've learned during this
episode is that not everything is scientifically true or accurate
in these films anyway, and they pretty much just do
what they want, so I think that they can add
I agree, I agree, right, your senator, Let's get these
diners in the movie. I'll call your governor before we go.

(01:09:07):
I want to cap off the episode with another listener email,
one that I think is very appropriate because we're talking
about ostrich dinosaurs and this is a question about ostriches.
So the email, short and sweet question is what's up
with ostriches finding their human keepers sexier than other ostriches?

(01:09:27):
And this is from p K. Thank you so much
for this question. I love this question. Um. First of all,
it's true like ostriches show mating displays towards human visitors, uh,
which seems to indicate that they think that it's time
to seduce some humans. And this is actually not unique

(01:09:49):
to ostriches. It happens in a few types of birds.
And this is due to something called imprinting. So when
a chick hatches, it takes a visual cue from what
it thinks is it's parents, imprints on that makes some
mental image of that that creature as its parents and
will follow them and and just like copy them do

(01:10:10):
all these things. So it's like if you have ever
watched baby ducklings hatch or geese and they see you first,
they'll follow you around because they think your momy or daddy.
So in ostriches, they also have this flocking behavior where
the babies have to follow dad around that the dad
is the one that takes care of all these babies,
so they have to make a strong imprint of what

(01:10:32):
their father looks like so that they can follow him around.
And so ostriches that are raised by humans will look
at you, They're like your dad, So I must be
a human. So if I see other humans, that must
be what I am. Um, so I'm gonna hit on
them and bring them home for you to meet for dinner.
And this happens not just like with humans, but like

(01:10:55):
if you have a bird, like a zebra finch, and
you have a different finch, raise it like a finch
that has a different color, morph a different look to it.
The zebra finches will grow up and be attracted to
the different looking birds, not the birds that look like
it's biological parents. So they will imprint on the adopted

(01:11:15):
parent and go like, Okay, this is what I'm looking
for in a mate. So yeah, so that's why ostriches
they like if they're raised by humans, They're like, all right,
I'm a human. I gotta find a human boyfriend or
girlfriend and they'll hit on you if you visit an
Ostrich farm. So yeah, I mean dolphins will hit on YouTube.
You know, they definitely hit on humans all the time.

(01:11:37):
And also you know who else imprints um? And yes,
I'm going to make a culture reference Jacob and he
was aware Wolf my life and he imprinted, so it
all comes full service. Yeah, that was weird because it
wasn't that kind. I think that if he would have

(01:11:58):
imprinted on her as an adult, it would have made
more sense the fact that he did it when she
was like an hour old. I was like, that's like,
that's some insect type behavior, like insects will like swarm
like um butterflies and other insects where the or bees
like UM will swarm over where there is a newly

(01:12:18):
emerging female just recently hatched, and we'll just like mob
mob her trying to get at her UM. Although into
their credit, they're also like newly hatched males. The males
just sometimes hatch a little bit before the females, so
when the female starts hatching, they literally like um mob
her and do like a mosh pit trying to mate
with her. So, which is wild because guys relax relax. Yeah, guys,

(01:12:45):
relax ostriches. You're okay, though, I'm flattered. Thank you for
thinking of me as a potential partner. Right, No, respectfully,
I will turn you down, but I am mattered, and
I wish you luck in your future pursuits with other ostriches. Like,

(01:13:07):
let's be clear, guys, that's where you need to be.
I mean, I mean, you know, but like maybe there's
maybe Look, I'm not gonna say, I'm not going to
say that there's not a not necessarily a human out
for you. But you're you're shaking your head, You're you're
you're staunchly against like ostrich human relations. I can respect

(01:13:30):
that absolutely absolutely. I think you know, go ahead and
we are happy as a human. We are happy to
find you your ostrich right. We'll be your wing person,
which is funny because you're a bird. Well, thank you
so much for joining me today, KB, This was incredible.

(01:13:52):
I love talking Jurassic Park with you. Do you have
anything to plug like where people can find you, any
projects you're doing. Yeah, Well, thank you so much for
having me. You know, I have said it a million
times before, but Jurassic Park is one of my favorite films,
even though it is full of bad science, as we
you know, shared with you almost almost good science, not

(01:14:14):
bad science, just almost good. Well, I mean, I'm still
gonna go with bad science because the scientists were making scientists.
One last point, one last point about how dumb like
these these Paul Blart scientists small cops scientists were, and
like security were, is that if they truly wanted to

(01:14:35):
prevent the dinosaurs from reproducing, you would make them all male,
because then there's just no way, right, like other than
like I guess the frogs like changing from but like
even in frogs, they change from female to male, not
male to female, not male to right, So like you
make them all male, then there's no chance of the
frog thing happening. There's no chance of parthenogenesis because males

(01:14:56):
don't lay eggs. The much safer option probably, I don't know,
like they're who know, Like they probably would have been
more colorful too, because like birds, we know males have
much prettier plumage than females. So like, make them all boys.
I know that's not a feminist thing to say, but
like make all the dinosaur's mails. That would have been
what you I mean, if you're a good scientists. There

(01:15:19):
are so many decisions and choices that are made by
all of the scientists in this film that I just
I shake my head when I watched, but I still
enjoy it. I love it. But the science in it
is just wild to me because I'm like, guys, guys, guys, guys,
And honestly, the science gets worse as you keep moving

(01:15:40):
forward in the sei. Yeah, I just I just want
to say that I do want to see Paul Blart,
like Paul Blart, mall coop trying to do security at
Jurassic Park. Oh my gosh. Yeah, let's add him in.
Let's drown in. I mean, I feel like we can
throw anyone in. Actually, you know what I'm gonna say,
I do have hope that just Jurassic World Dominion, the
one that comes out next year. I have hoped that

(01:16:01):
they have upstair game when it comes to the scientific
consultants that they use on the project. You know what.
I feel like it's gonna be a fresh start. They're
gonna have some great science in this film. I'm just
gonna be positively, you know, turning over newly. Yeah, done
a soars feathers. Yes, let's do it. Well, thank you

(01:16:21):
again for having me. It is such a great time.
And yeah, I mean you know, I am on social
media Instagram and Twitter at the late k B that's
t h e l A d y k A y
v um. I am the season two hosts of the
Color Grade podcast if you want to check that out
on all podcasts listening platforms, and I talk TV and

(01:16:42):
film with some of my critic friends basically, and I
do a little weekly or we do picks that I
am like. Listen, even if this film is not fabulous,
you still need to watch it because you will laugh. Um,
so just like dressing mere an iconic film? What's that science?
So yeah, please check out the Color Grade Podcast, or

(01:17:02):
you can check out my other show on YouTube called
super Lady Hero Hour, where we dive into nothing but
comic book nice nice super dinosaurs replace all the superheroes dinosaurs.
That's my opinion. Maybe that's coming coming, you know, who knows.
Maybe there's an animated series where all of these dinosaurs

(01:17:24):
actually have superpowers. Um, maybe that's where Jurassic World Dominia
goes next time. Maybe the I think there's a squirrel
girl villain where like the squirrel Girl is like the
villain tries to turn people into dinosaurs, and she's trying
to convince him to use science to make the world
a better place. He's like, but I don't want to
make the world a better place. I want to turn
people into dinosaur which fair. I mean, you know, maybe

(01:17:48):
he's just like, I want to see what happens if
everyone was a dinosaur. Fair. I I appreciate it. Well.
You can find us on the internet at Creature Feature
Pod on Instagram, at Creature feet Pod on Twitter. That's
f A T not FPE teeth head is something very different.
You can send me an email at Creature Feature Pod
at gmail dot com and I will try to answer

(01:18:09):
your question either through email or maybe even on the show,
and you can find me. I am Katie Golden on
Twitter k A T I E G O L d
I N where I just talk about my Katie thoughts
not necessarily related to the podcast, and as always, I
am pro bird rights on Twitter, where I fight for
the rights of birds because they are dinosaurs and they

(01:18:29):
should probably regain control of the earth. I'm just saying,
just saying, thank you so much for listening. If you're
enjoying this show and you leave a rating and review.
I will read it. I read all of them, and
I appreciate them. All warms warms my little dinosaur heart
and it really does help the show. Thanks to the
Space Concerts for their super awesome song. X Alumina. Creature

(01:18:52):
features a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
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