Top 10 Worst Paleontological Reconstructions
Paleontological reconstructions have long since come a long way ever since the 19th century, for example, we now know that Velociraptor was a turkey-sized feathered dinosaur with supinated wrists instead of JP-styled pronated wrists. However, there are sadly so many reconstructions of prehistoric life that are inaccurate, or, sometimes, way off from the real animal it's supposed to be. Here's the list of the worst reconstructions of extinct animals of all time.
Such an atrocious reconstruction of Spinosaurus that wants to be a movie monster like Godzilla. That's the reason why I no longer watch Monsters Resurrected, because the makers only want to make the dinosaurs monsters rather than real animals (resulting in awesomebros wanting Spinosaurus to be a JPIII-styled Spinosaurus wannabe monster instead of a humble fisherman with a paddle-shaped tail it really was in real life). This Spinosaurus reconstruction makes Jurassic Park III's Spinosaurus look like Walking With Dinosaurs. Definitely the worst dinosaur in pop culture ever.
This is so inaccurate. Having pronated wrists. A semi-circular sail. Legs being too large. Having too strong jaws and arms. Lack of paddle-shaped tail. And having a monster-like behavior like what awesomebros want.
This is an insult to the real Spinosaurus and paleontology itself. This is no documentary this show likes to claim. It is a terrible horror film made by Michael Bay.
Ugh! My eyes are burning from seeing this thing! Super inaccurate!
Why is it called Velociraptor if it lookings NOTHING like a Velociraptor in any way? It's way too big. It has pronated wrists. It's skull is too shortened. And it completely lacks feathers! That's why I don't watch Jurassic World since the makers of the Jurassic Park franchise doesn't even care about changing their views towards non-avian dinosaurs.
Seriously? Why were the Velociraptors given Deinonychus-like skulls and Achilobator-like large sizes unlike the real ones and made them reptilian in terms of being scaly instead of feathered and having zombie-like pronated wrists instead of bird-like supinated wrists we now know theropods, including real Velociraptors, had? They may as well have been dubbed as a fictional genus of dromaeosaurs based on these inaccuracies and differences, possibly Nublarraptors or Ingenraptors. That reconstruction is very disappointing, as reality is often more fascinating and awesome than how movies portray it. And did you know what? The dromaeosaurs were planned to be mostly feathered based on the concept art for the first Jurassic Park film of 1993, but they chose not to, based on their bias. The dromaeosaurs are also incorrectly shown with ape-like or dolphin-like intelligence, which is absurd since the real ones had brains no bigger than a Turkey's or an opossum's, although they may have been ...more
Ahh! It burns my eyes! That ain't no Quetzalcoatlus! That's an Ornithocheirus who was on a vacation and took its crest on its beak off.
So many of the pterosaurs depicted by David Peters (an amateur paleontologist) are so wrong, and are inaccurately depicted bipedal and being too lizard-like. In fact, Peters considers pterosaurs as either literal lizards or close relatives of lizards, which isn't the case, as real pterosaurs were actually relatives of dinosaurs (such as birds), not lizards.
The Megalosaurus was a large non-avian theropod dinosaur and was the first ever non-avian dinosaur discovered by humanity. Believe it or not, it was thought to literally be a giant lizard, hence the name Megalosaurus (which means big lizard). We now know that this is so far from the truth, yet this reconstruction still stands in Crystal Palace, London, to show how far we have come in paleontology.
When mammoth fossils were discovered by modern people, people thought that it looked far more pig-like than it really was, despite being an elephant it was in real life, so Sir Hans Sloan made this super horrendous reconstruction of the mammoth.
Iguanodon was the second non-avian dinosaur discovered by humanity, and, believe it or not, like Megalosaurus, it was thought to literally be a giant lizard, with its thumb spike mistaken for a horn like those of rhinoceroses and rhino iguanas, and it was incorrectly thought to be carnivorous like Megalosaurus. We now know that this is so far from the truth, yet, like the Megalosaurus reconstruction I have mentioned, this reconstruction still stands in Crystal Palace.
Before the 1970s, All bipedal dinosaurs, even the famous Tyrannosaurus, were thought to walk upright like a human, and drag their tails on the ground like a kangaroo, akin to Godzilla and other kaijus from movies. However, we now know that they actually held their tails off the ground and had bird-like postures instead of being humanoid.
They looked creepy.
When the paleontologist, Evgeny Maleev, discovered the claws of Therizinosaurus, he thought the claws belonged to a massive and aquatic turtle or turtle-like reptile. However, we now know that Therizinosaurus was actually a dinosaur instead of a turtle, and it was herbivorous and partially feathered.
After pterosaurs were discoverded by paleontologists, Johann Georg Wagler thought that Pterodactylus and other pterosaurs were incapable of flight and instead swam the open ocean like a sea turtle by using their wings, which were thought to be flippers. Wagler went to as far as to class pterosaurs as marine reptiles like Plesiosaurs. However, we know that this is far from the truth and pterosaurs were flying reptiles which used their wings to fly.
This Oviraptor reconstruction looks more like a monster lizard-featherless parrot hybrid more than anything (including the real Oviraptor). It is also incorrectly depicted as an egg-thief (which we now know is false), and was inspired by an outdated theory that Oviraptor stole eggs of Protoceratops, however, those supposed Protoceratops eggs were actually Oviraptor eggs and the Oviraptor adults were actually not thieves at all, but caring parents.
This Therizinosaurus reconstruction is atrocious, looking a like a nightmare hybridized monstrosity that consists of an ostrich and an alligator more than a real Therizinosaurus, being extremely inaccurate (having pronated wrists, fully-toothed mouth without a beak tip, being entirely featherless, having crocodilian-looking armor, etc). This is the WORST Therizinosaurus in pop culture.
Why does Pteranodon in this movie have a teeth if its scientific name literaly means "toothless wing"? It is also inaccurate due to lacking fur-like filaments (pycnofibers) like all pterosaurs and having sharp wing tips (which would mess up aerodynamics, so pterosaurs solved this problem by having rounded wingtips).
Carnotaurus in this movie is WAY TOO BIG (possibly as large as or larger than real T. rex) and is too muscular (it actually had slim legs and was a theropod equivalent to a cheetah). It is also incorrectly shown with pronated wrists, something no theropod was known to have.
We know that real Iguanodon did not have lips covering their beaks, so why did Disney gave Iguanodon lips? There is no physical evidence to support the lipped Iguanodon theory. That's like giving modern birds lips.
Velociraptor in this Disney movie are inaccurately shown with pronated wrists and lacking feathers. At least it is more correctly-sized, have long slender skulls of real Velociraptor (unlike the Jurassic Park's "so-called Velociraptors"), and did not slash its claws into prey (which I'm glad this thing didn't do in the movie since real raptors were not capable of slashing into prey, unlike cassowaries, and instead hunted prey more like birds of prey, including eagles). It is nowhere near as bad as Jurassic Park raptors.
Brontosaurus and other large sauropods were long thought to be largely aquatic (or even fully aquatic), since people thought they were too big to live entirely on land. However, we now know that they were fully terrestrial and were able to support their weight on land.
This Spinosaurus reconstruction is terrible, but I can forgive the makers of the movie, since Spinosaurus wasn't well known back then when the film was made and hit theaters. It is nowhere near as bad as Monsters Resurrected's Spinosaurus, and at least the people tried to make the Spinosaurus in this movie as an animal and not a 100% monster, even if it's somewhat like a monster in parts of its behavior (unlike in Monsters Resurrected, where it is depicted as a 100% monster) .
