• @iheartneopets@lemm.ee
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    702 days ago

    So tired of this meme, especially in a science themed sub. It’s just wrong and thusly promotes disinformation because it takes seconds to read a meme like this and move on without question. Meanwhile it takes (comparitavely) ages to actually research how fossils are reconstructed. If people even think to research it in the first place, because, hey, it’s in a science-based sub, right??

    Remember kids, the best memes are those based on truth 😎

    • @profgrumpypants@midwest.social
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      2 days ago

      I was wondering this very thing. As some fossils were preserved whole, as others were not. I believe though, the whole ones, or even the ones that captured large contiguous chunks of tail could disprove this. Not sure, just was having a guess.

      *Not due to soft tissue being found but more so signs of trapped decay of some sort.

      • @iheartneopets@lemm.ee
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        52 days ago

        How do you mean? Dinosaurs? They were warmblooded, so no, not just lizards. Usually in the rock around the fossilized bones are imprints of other features of the animal, like skin texture or the presence of feathers.

        We can also tell a lot from the points where muscles attach to the bones.

        That’s not even accounting for the behavior we can interpret based on fossilized footprints! We’re actually learning that T-Rex were pretty good parents for instance.

        It’s a very complex field, and it’s amazing how much we can learn from so few clues.