All your favorite dinosaurs suck

What's your favorite dinosaur? Actually, that doesn't really matter because your opinion is just. plain. wrong., says comedian Dan Telfer. Included: A great reference to the differences between the Velociraptors you know and fear thanks to Jurassic Park, and actual Velociraptors, which had feathers and were a nice size for kicking. Pedantry can be fun!

Fair warning: Includes swear words. Some people may consider this inappropriate for small children and coworkers who act like small children.

(Via Tommy Bobo, who is awesome.)

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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Anonymous

If you have gripes, you should read this:

dantelfer.blogspot.com/2010/06/hello-internet.html

Dan addresses many of the gripes directly.

And isn’t the whole point of “truthiness” that the facts can be fudged for a gut feeling or “humor”?
Anonymous

Dan is one of the funniest comics out there. Someone like Conan should really snag him up for a writing gig.
malone johnson

He clearly has never visited:

http://thebestdinosaur.com/
Anonymous

The public laughs are terrible… kills all eventual joy of watching.
Anonymous

I would have gone with the “raptor deep-cut” the Utahraptor.
ryuthrowsstuff

His comments on the stegosaurus are incredibly outdated and flat wrong. Stegosaurus did not have 2 brains, and the claim that it was straight stupid has very little foundation.
- Anonymous
  
  I have a zoology professor who says that Apatosaurus couldn’t raise its head that high, and so either swam (using its neck to graze on underwater plants) or would use its neck to graze at ground level over a wide area (so it didn’t have to walk all the time). He really doesn’t like the way paleontologists keep arguing that maybe they had multiple hearts in their necks.
  
  Captcha is harbor succeed
Deadmeat

Sadly I knew the right answer.

Guess that’s what happens when you want to be a paleontologist when you’re a kid.
- Anonymous
  
  Same. I was hoping for Baryonyx.
Anonymous

Jurassic Park was released in 1993… shortly after the discovery of the Utahraptor, which they depict in the film under the name Velociraptor and without the cuddly feathers.

They kept the famous claw.
James

The audience ruin that for me, constant contrived sounding laughter.
Rob Beschizza

Ankylosaurus represent.
Anonymous

Where again is the soft tissue evidence proving whether Stegosaurus did or did not have two brains? Impossible to declare either theory flat wrong. That’s why they are still theories. It is interesting that “flat wrong” and “very little foundation” were used in the same argument for opposing positions.
Brainspore

Ankylosaurus was my favorite ever since I did a report on them in the second grade. The dude looked like an armadillo from hell and had a freakin’ mace for a tail!
- Felton
  
  Ankylosaurus might be more badass, but my favorite was the adorable triceratops.
- Jonathan Badger
  
  I actually built a model of Ankylosaurus (from a model kit, like model cars or planes, but geekier) as a kid.
Anonymous

via Linkbait: 8 ways Ankylosaurus can help you survive a plane crash.
MelSkunk

Ankylosaurus? How about Mymoorapelta, smart guy! Same genus, with awesome fucking SICKLES sticking out of the sides of his shoulders. Oh yeah! Nice try, though
jphilby

“isn’t the whole point of “truthiness” that the facts can be fudged for a gut feeling or “humor”?”

Exactly! Geez you gripers sound like a bunch of dinosaur geeks! Chill! That man’s making beer money by being funny! How much you makin’ by bein’ all accurate ‘n stuff? Huh?

I hesitate (oh what the hell) to point out that until the evidence is in, one hypothesis is as good as another.
- AnthonyC
  
  “I hesitate (oh what the hell) to point out that until the evidence is in, one hypothesis is as good as another.”
  
  In the case of dino brain size that’s true, but in general it need not be so. Consider Russell’s teapot.
Phrosty

Ankylosaurus was definitely cool, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, “Christ, what an asshole.”
The Unusual Suspect

The Toronto Raptors suck too.
johnpaul

Ankylosaurus was my favourite dinosaur ever since I was in second grade (@Brainspore!), I was hoping someone would shout it out the whole time. I wrote a brilliant little short story about an ankylosaurus that, somehow, was transported into the present. The details are sketchy but I recall he went up against a tank at one point.
dan winckler

If you like’d this video, check out Dan’s new album Fossil Record, available on iTunes and as a CD. :)
burnum

This sketch is just begging to be animated.
Anonymous

Dan Telfer is my fave new comic. He’s looking for a job in NYC or LA. You should hire him. Seriously.
Deadmeat

@Anon#33

You can get that tie at Thinkgeek:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/hats-ties/9352/
Choppers

Dan Telfer and Elizabeth McQuern are the geniuses behind Chicago Underground Comedy – one of the best rooms in Chicago.

http://www.chicagoundergroundcomedy.com/
Fuzzy

Dan’s great — if you ever get the chance to see him live, I’d heartily suggest it. And yeah, I second the suggestion about getting his new EP.
Anonymous

Bowser is an Ankylosaurus. Therefore: favorite.
proof: http://www.geekologie.com/2009/12/02/samurai-mario-1.jpg
Anonymous

Dan is hilarous. I loved this bit so much I ran off and got the album from Itunes. My only regret is that it isn’t longer. This guy really needs an hour long special somewhere to show the world what they are missing.
Anonymous

This makes me want to high five a cloud!
Anonymous

As far as outright size, I go with amphicoelias. 190 Feet long, 135 tons. This fucker was HUGE. Name doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, though. Oh well. Still awesome in my book :)
JeffF

My favorite was pachycephalosaurus.

Pretty much the dinosaur version of big horn sheep.
- Anonymous
  
  I was wondering if anyone else would say pachy!
Hagrid

The latest installment of xkcd is about tiny velocraptors…
http://xkcd.com/758/
Dread Pirate Robert

I am totally stealing this bit (and cleaning it up, and fixing minor factual errors) for my end-of-unit finale on Dinosaurs.

Teachers everywhere thank you.
Anonymous

Jurassic Park was released in 1993… shortly after the discovery of the Utahraptor, which they depict in the film under the name Velociraptor and without the cuddly feathers.

They kept the famous claw.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utahraptor

Yes, the Jurassic Park raptors were not accurate depicions of either species of the genus Velociraptor. No, they were not Utahraptors. The Utahraptor was significantly larger than the raptors depicted in Jurassic Park. The “famous claw” is a defining feature of the class Dromaeosuridae and not a novel feature of a single genus.

The “teh segosaurus haz 2 brainz!” myth sprang from evidence of a nerve cluster observed in some dinosaur pelvises. The “sacral brain” theory never had much traction among paleontologists. It was not considered a likely interpretation even in the 1910s.
gerta

@#2, yes, only one brain, and much larger than a walnut at that. I’ll pile on with the gripes: Giganotosaurus is gi-ga-no-to-saur-us, not gi-gan-to-saur-us; and he keeps using the term “genus” to describe far more general taxonomic groups.

Still funny, but needs more truthiness.
Anonymous

I like his tie. I wonder where I can get me one of those.
- Anonymous
  
  http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/hats-ties/9352/
WheatConspiracy

I saw this guy open for Maria Bamford, who is hilarious, and he was really great. I’ve actually seen him open for her twice, with a year gap in between, and he’s gotten much better.