Dinosaurs are awesome, but get less awesome every day. And I don’t mean we all age out of the magic and wonderment of giant lizards. I mean paleontologists, who ran out of cool names long ago, keep discovering new dino species and adding lame ass feathers to old ones. Have you seen a recent velociraptor picture? Every innovation in fossil science makes them look more like a murderer in a Big Bird costume. Let’s really talk about this.
My source for this scientifically essential article is 2016’s THE COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DINOSAURS & PREHISTORIC CREATURES. It rules, but points to a very dark future. Picture one day switching your Citibank-Fritos Environment FilterVisors to outgoing audio so your grandchildren hear, “When I was your age, prehistoric creatures were rad, not 200 versions of the same garbage chicke– Free outgoing audio use expired, please listen to the following sponsored content to continue hearing your grandparent or other complain: New for Disney*All^Ages members only: Filthy Outside Sister Fisting Real, Confirmed Brother Rated PG.” Holy crap, what is going on? This intro is off the goddamn rails. Let’s try again to get started on what should have been a very simple premise to establish:
That’s really what this is and what it’s called! You are in for such a fun treat today, 1900🌠reader!
Utahraptor is what you change your Latter Day Saints private school mascot to after public pressure forces you to retire the Savage Drunkfoots. This thing has the haircut of a woman who has had sex with two different and entire Motley Crüe cover bands. Utahraptor should be playing stone guitar on a Flintstone’s birthday card that says “To a wonderful Nephew, you were born to BED-Rock!” When Velociraptor sees Utahraptor calling he says, “Oh, my desert trash cousin must need 600 bucks to post bail again.”
Are those little legs, Pachyrachis? You poor, sad thing. Should they have even given this evolutionary misstep a name? This is obviously almost a snake that hasn’t quite let go of its glory days as a lizard. What kind of asshole would even classify it during this awkward point in its genetic development? Pachyrachis is the taxonomic equivalent of immortalizing someone by the moustache they had when they were twelve. This is like writing an obituary for Ice T and using a picture from the movie where he was a kangaroo.
“Jesus, these bones belonged to a really crappy dinosaur. Hey, you know, we should name this one after Duncan. Shit, here he comes.”
“AHOY, GENTLEMEN! AND WHAT ARE MY LOVELY FELLOW PALEONTOLOGISTS TALKING ABOUT ON THIS FINE MORNING!?“
“We’ve discovered a new fossil record, Duncan! And I guess you caught us– we were talking about naming it after you, our respected colleague. Would you like that?”
“UM… HELL-OOHHH!? YES TIMES TEN, NAY INFINITY!“
One Submission to the Commission on Zoological Nomenclature Later…
“OH, REAL MATURE, GUYS. I SAW THAT SPINOSAURID YOU NAMED AFTER ‘ME.’ HIGH-LARIOUS! SO FUNNY I FORGOT TO LAUGH!“
You extrapolated a pretty sweet alligator dog from that handful of teeth, Sir Richard Owen! What are you going to call it? T-titanosuchus? Ha ha was Megalodicklicker already taken? This is what a Platyhystrix bully would call you in Permian school. Titanosuchus is what you would name a full-costume Godzilla porn parody. Wait, never mind, I just thought of Ho-Jira: Queen of the Monstercocks. Look, I think it’s crazy too, but the whole article is this. I’m not faking you out with the top third of a crazy one to surprise you with something good. Ho-Jira: Queen of the Monstercocks was the good.
You’re telling me some ancient earthworm decided to grow a little penis man on one of its ends? How dare it. I don’t care if you believe in God or science, we can all agree that fuck both of them for allowing Sineoamphisbaena to happen. And if either of them had given this thing a mouth and eyes all it would do is look at itself and scream. I believe the fossil records will support my theory that Sineoamphisbaena was uniquely adapted to do nothing except piss inside its own body until evolution invented a bird or fish disgusting enough to eat it. Biology should be fucking embarrassed.
Hey, Chungkingosaurus, what’s it like being a knockoff Stegosaurus named after canned chow mein noodles? You look like a testicle with every injury and disease. If anyone ever lays eyes on you they will absolutely assume their time machine badly fucked something up and go time crazy. Chungkingosaurus is like a mascot the People’s Republic of China would create to teach Uyghur children how to assemble garage door openers at a re-education camp.
“Hello? No, you have the wrong number; you’re looking for StegoSAURus. Right, bony plates, spike tail. No, no I’m the one with rooster legs and dead cat arms with a male pattern baldness skull. No, no, it’s no problem. It happens all the ti– hold on, someone’s calling on the other line. Hello? No, this is StegoCERas you have the wrong number. Right, CER not SAUR. No trouble! Easy mistake, happens all the time! Yeah, you too! Okay, I’m back. You still there? Hello?”
Look at you, you bug-eyed piece of shit. Nature put your legs on upside down so you could kick yourself in the crotch while you wait for something cooler to hunt you. Mesosaurus, you look like a Jurassic Park janitor emptied his mop into the crocodile DNA, and you sound like something Jar Jar Binks would say if he got hit with a dinosaur ray. This whole deal, I insist, is not some metaphor or something. I’m really still writing “The 13 Crappiest Dinosaurs” and the punchline for this entry relied on you remembering how Jar Jar Binks talked.
With the face of a dick and the tail of an uncircumsized dick, researchers had no choice but to give this thing the name Diictodon. And what’s he going to say about it? “Um, actually my name means not a phallus, but ‘two weasel teeth’?” Fuck you, nerd Dickisaur. Go back to the Penis epoch and squirt dino cream out of your face.
Longosuchus? Did the Cleveland Science Center let an XBOX subreddit vote on the name for their robot badger? Ludicrous. I’ve picked up enough Latin from this dinosaur book to know “Longosuchus” means “something a fun prostitute would put on a massage parlor menu.” Longosuchus is the most coveted rank in the Spartan army, not a dinosaur name.
Look at this rat-faced monstrosity. I guess science just started mixing animal parts together until it landed on a fur lizard with a dented skull and no natural defenses other than being too grotesque to behold. And some guy named Eric classified it as Ericiolacerta? Ericio Lacerta sounds like he should be a minor league shortstop sending private Facebook messages to your wife.
Arizona-fucking-saurus? This thing is something your Dimetrodon wife would hatch seven months after Ericio Lacerta rented out your guest room. Its remains were probably found next to a bag of fossilized drugs it was trying to eat before Triassic cops broke down its door. It looks like the star of a movie called Denise Richards Just Marries a Dinosaur and That Should Be Enough. You are dumber for having looked at it. Arizonasaurus is what a Tucson P.D. sketch artist would draw if you described the iguana who stole all your meth, you mean b-books.
The man leaned out the window of the stolen research van at first to vomit, but he decided no, that would be a waste of six kinds of bad tequila and one good scotch. He burped, “Science guys– dorks. Listen. No, fucking listen. This is, okay, fuuuuck I’m drunk. Ha ha no, seriously, listen: whatever bones you find in this bullshit rock? You name that dinosaur after me. After ME.” The stranger flipped off the paleontologists before explosively ramming their van into their dig site.
“We will,” Duncan promised the brave drinker. And a dinosaur scientist can never lie.
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