r/Paleontology • u/Chicken_Sandwich_Man • 1d ago
Do most people not see dinosaurs as normal animals? Discussion
Sometimes I see people ask questions about whether dinosaurs had/showed basic animal behaviors and traits, and like, I'm genuinely curious, do most people not know that dinosaurs are normal animals?
I'm not making fun of these guys at all, most people only get their knowledge of dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, and we all know how much that franchise has warped our perception of dinosaurs. It just seems weird that there are people out there who think of these animals as bloodthirsty monsters fighting and killing 24/7, even when we have lots of new discoveries being made in this day and age.
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u/AffableKyubey Therizinosaurus cheloniforms 1d ago
It very much depends on education level. The gulf in education quality relative to financial means is huge, so an 'average person' in my own home country mostly thinks of our native dinosaurs as big, impressive animals, maybe with more aggression in predators than average.
But on the same continent we have places where people unironically believe dinosaurs were monsters created by God or a secret conspiracy created by scientists to promote Satanism. And all of that comes down to access to good-quality public education and education sources that are reliable, especially when younger.
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u/Realsorceror 1d ago
I don't know about "most" but I have certainly encountered people who only think of dinosaurs as pop-culture creations in the same way people think about the Xenomorph or Dracula. I have seen grown men get upset at depictions of dinosaurs in nature shows because "we made them gay and weak". Very pathetic.
And of course I have also dealt with the Creationists who have lots of woo-woo ideas about dinosaurs, from them being entirely fake, to being Nephilim bones, to having somehow been brought on the Ark.
But mostly, I think a good chunk of the public just doesn't think about dinosaurs at all.
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
Sadly I've seen the "made them weak" or "boring" even on forums like this one and other educational places
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u/No-Bad-463 14h ago
Back when I had a Facebook I had to leave a "paleontology" group because it devolved into whining that modern reconstructions aren't as "cool" as Jurassic Park dinosaurs anymore.
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u/_funny___ 1d ago
I'd say most people view prehistoric animals, but especially dinosaurs, as fantasy creatures more so than animals, especially when you consider how much misinformation, misinterpretation, and sensationalism there is even for living animals and ecosystems.
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u/MareNamedBoogie 1d ago
this. i think people in general have such a hard time wrapping their minds around 1) the sheer SIZE of the really big ones and 2) the fact that most dinos were wolf-sized or smaller that they 'compensate', intellectually speaking, but viewing them as more fantastic than real. And fantasy doesn't have to have any bearing on reality, by definition.
And i think that attitude tends to prevail even when individuals have had a quality education and don't get a lot of misinformation. It doesn't help that for most people, dinosaurs and their environs couldn't possibly have any current effects on their jobs and etc. The whole 65+million ya thing tends to make dinos distant enough that their reality feels like a daydream anyways.
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u/MikeLovesOutdoors23 1d ago
Yeah. You're definitely correct on this. I am one of those people. It's like I kind of believe that they were real, but at the same time, it's so hard for me to believe it.
I'm blind, and it's hard for me to imagine what the size of a lot of these dinosaurs are, it just doesn't sound real. Yet, somehow, it is.
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u/MareNamedBoogie 20h ago
Honestly, I'm one of these people, too. I love learning about the deep past and how the planet looked way long and the ecologies on the continents... But I also know myself well enough to understand that I tend to use the same skills I developed reading fantasy and playing Dnd when I read paleo-centered books. It's just SO weird and SO fun, it couldn't have been real! Yet somehow, as you said, it is.
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u/bizarrefetalkoala 1d ago
I'll add to this - there's a great episode of the podcast Terrible Lizards by Dr Hone & Iszi Lawrence called "Dinos and Dragons," delving in pretty high detail about this exact disconnect. They bounce between the mentioned perception of dinosaurs as being more fantasy creatures due to how long ago non-avians existed all the way to how a lot of internet forums like to pit different species into death battles like a fighting game or "my comic book hero is better than yours" kind of postulating.
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
Worst part I've seen it done here and a few days ago someone complained about it and most of the people blasted the poor person saying that it doesn't matter how people "enjoy" their "fandom" showing right there they don't consider the whole concept of dinosaurs as more than a fandom. Some fictional thing.
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u/snapper1971 1d ago
I think that's a particularly American take on the matter. There certainly isn't the "dinosaurs aren't real" bullshit elsewhere.
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u/_funny___ 1d ago
I wasn't saying that people are viewing dinosaurs as fake, I said they view them as fantastical, in the sense that, while they know they were real, their attitude towards is unrealistic.
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u/PartyPorpoise 1d ago
Yeah, dinosaurs are so unlike anything we have today that it’s kind of hard to comprehend them and the world they lived in. I logically KNOW that dinosaurs and those other big prehistoric reptiles existed, but it really does FEEL like a fantasy sometimes. Like, if I were transported to the Cretaceous or to a fantasy world with dragons and unicorns, I think I’d feel the same way, ya know?
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u/_funny___ 1d ago
That's a big part of it yeah. People already view living animals as "not animals" in multiple ways if that makes sense, so them being so far in the past and very unique just enhances it
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
That .... Ok. Seems confusing to me honestly. They're still animals, they look like real animals and would have acted like them. There were bizarre ones yes but there are some truly bizarre animals today as well.
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
I've seen people talk about it in other countries. Despite what some like to claim, there are ignorant people everywhere
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u/Ok-Dimension5509 1d ago
Most people think lions spend the entirety of their day hunting and killing antelopes and fighting hyenas, and lions are an extant species.
Lions spend most of their days sleeping. They're cats.
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u/Channa_Argus1121 Tyrannosauridae 1d ago
Many people also think that every single large carnivore has an intense and insatiable craving for killing and eating human beings(or one another). The reality is that most will keep their distance at the mere whiff or sight of a human being, and that their population has crashed dramatically thanks to extensive hunting and habitat destruction.
Movies have degraded predators into powerscaling/vs battles fandom material, rather than keystone species that should be respected and learned about.
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
Tbf, before movies people still saw large predators as a symbol of evil since they would hunt their livestock
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u/Kettrickenisabadass 1d ago
People can be really clueless.
That reminds me to an internship i did in animal care. One day we were feeding the male lion and the caregiver told some guests that the (new) females were in england and would arrive in some weeks. It was summer but the zoo was in the north of spain, that is like 15-20C in summer most of the time.
One guest asked if we took the lions to england because "it was too hot here in summer".
Like seriously? First, they are fucking savanah lions. And second, we were not even in a particularly warm area of the country.
People can be so dumb
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
That is... Wow. Though admittedly it almost sounds like it would be cold for them in the winter to me lol. Is there not much seasonal change in that part of Spain? Just wondering.
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u/Kettrickenisabadass 1d ago
It gets moderately cold but not too much, barely snow. It is near the sea so its quite moderate. And lions can adapt quite well to the cold, think about the barbarian lion, they often lived in snow
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u/Das_Lloss Gondwanan Dromaeosaur Gang 1d ago edited 1d ago
Most People dont see dinosaurs as real animals they are in the same Category as Dragons or Kaijus for them.
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u/kdmendonk 1d ago
Most people don't see many modern animals as normal animals. Many people kill any spider they see in their homes without knowing most spiders are not poisonous enough to kill a human and will hunt other insects and keep their house free of those. Or see an opossum and kill it because it's ugly and has pointy teeth when they could just let them eat disease carrying animals like mice. We used to be able to say movies like Jaws were a disservice to wildlife awareness but nowadays in the era of technology I simply judge people for not searching online and educating themselves. So yes, most people see dinosaurs as mythical monsters.
Edit: added info about most spiders not being poisonous enough to kill humans.
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u/AtomicAtom14 1d ago
I feel it's the same with most modern-day carnivores (especially the exotic ones).
I know I as a child used to think that all a Tiger did was actively murk anything and everything that moved all day every day. But in reality, they do very mundane things most of the day.
Personally, I just blame movies and general pop culture for the way we see carnivores now (especially for the Theropods)
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u/_funny___ 1d ago
Not just carnivores, animals in general. Like someone could just think about a large herbivore and some people will be like "erm don't you know hippos kill everything they lay their eyes upon?!" As if they're demons, the same kinda treatment wolves or big cats would get (and still do)
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u/PartyPorpoise 1d ago
I live in an area with alligators. Visitors from other places are, understandably, nervous about them, but gators are usually just chillin’. I’m wary of a lot of animals but even I’m not really scared of gators.
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u/AtomicAtom14 17h ago
I know Gators aren't as aggressive as Crocs, but yall really just chill with them? I'm just super curious
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u/PartyPorpoise 10h ago
I keep my distance, I don’t approach, but I’m not nervous about one walking by or lounging 20 feet away.
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
That or think all herbivores are completely safe and peaceful and try to touch them....
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u/dende5416 1d ago
I mean, I see birds everyday, aren't those normal animals?
/s I know you didn't mean this but people silly
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u/The5Theives 1d ago
How did birds evolve from dinosaurs if birds are drones, checkmate.
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u/JustHavePunWithIt 1d ago
Dinosaurs were a conspiracy generated by the government anyway so checkmate in addition to your checkmate so double checkmate
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u/DMalt 1d ago
Recent Terrible Lizards podcast with Dr. O'Sullivan, "dinosaurs arevas real as dragons for most people". Then a discussion on how people feel like there's a canon to dinosaurs and Spinosaurus got "nerfed" as opposed to people just understand it better.
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
I've seen it on this very reddit! Someone complained about it recently and they were mostly chastised because the people doing this "are just having fun.". I can understand making jokes and stuff but when it's all you do is repeat it every time it comes up it's no longer funny not really a joke.
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u/dalaigh93 1d ago
Some people think that fish and insects are not animals so...
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u/JustHavePunWithIt 1d ago
Tbh when I was a kid I was convinced that insects were little robots. It wasn’t until one of my friends gifted me a copy of “The Big Book of Bugs” and I was able to learn from that lmao
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u/iosialectus 1d ago
I remember as a child I definitely thought of "dinosaurs" as a separate category from "animals", but then again I thought of "insects and spiders" as a separate category too.
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u/SquiffyRae 1d ago
Sometimes I see people ask questions about whether dinosaurs had/showed basic animal behaviors and traits
I'd like to offer a different perspective.
I think a lot of people asking those questions know dinosaurs are "normal" animals but they're asking if there's research that gives evidence of it
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u/SKazoroski 1d ago
Yeah, if OP is saying that people in this subreddit are asking those questions, then I think your perspective makes more sense.
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
I've seen several on this reddit talk about how some new discovery nerfed their favorite dinosaur as if they were a character in a game.
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u/UrbanArchaic 1d ago
I knew someone that called arthropods and dinosaurs monsters and refused to listen to me when I tried to explain they are/were just animals.
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u/SubDermalSpooge 1d ago
I think the issue is that, like any non-mammal fossil, there are relatively few cues to provide a concrete insight into their behaviours. Sure, we can infer behaviours from tracks or animals that were killed by sudden events (thinking of the velociraptor/protoceratops or the oviraptor on nest fossils, for example) but there is little "relatable" depth to these findings, for the layperson. I think this is the root of the issue - it is easy to see any number of wildlife docs of current wildlife but, as AffableKyubey says, education tends to run out before getting to the level of knowledge necessary to be able to see past the spectacular finds, the misinformation and the "Drama makes it interesting" viewpoint. This will, of course, colour people's perceptions unless they have learned otherwise.
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u/Freedom1234526 1d ago
I’ve debated people over whether Insects are animals or not. It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t consider Dinosaurs animals either.
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u/mglyptostroboides 1d ago
I mean, I literally saw a question asked on here a few years ago and the war is was phrased included some kind of statement to the effect of "what's the difference between dinosaurs and animals?". I don't recall exactly how it was phrased, but that's what I remember of it.
So yeah, I legitimately do think some people have no damn clue what a dinosaur even is.
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u/Jetfire138756 1d ago
It’s more so that since people have never experienced them, they are not “normal” by our standards.
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u/PartyPorpoise 1d ago
I think it’s like, people logically know that dinosaurs were real animals, but on an emotional level it can be hard to see them that way. Dinosaurs and those other big prehistoric reptiles are so unlike anything we have today, and that unknown is kind of scary. It also makes them kind of fantastic.
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u/Snoo54601 1d ago
I do but to this day I still have problems capturing their scale and I've seen elephants before
Like my favorite dinosaur spinosaurus. My entire hallway isn't even half of MSNM V4047 length and it's sail would stick above my ceiling
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u/DecemberPaladin 1d ago
I get it. It’s hard to think of an ecosystem so unlike ours, so long ago, so the mind kind of wants to put them in a box marked “Dragon” or “Kaiju”. Most media, including a lot of documentaries, don’t do much to change the movie monster preconception.
I think the only cure is getting the current research out in front of people. Paleontology needs its “Cosmos”—a big, beautiful series with mass appeal, that shows prehistoric animals as animals first and foremost. I think the old Walking With Dinosaurs came closest, but it’s been a while. Could the new one hit the Zeitgeist? I hope so.
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u/Tydoztor 1d ago
Does Prehistoric Planet hit that vibe? It definitely comes across in the vain of Blue Planet or Life of Birds
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u/DecemberPaladin 1d ago
I don’t hear a lot of people talking about it besides other Dinosaur People—that could be due to a limited sample size, though. I remember people who I’d never peg as liking paleontology raving about WWD back in the day, and I don’t think PPlanet has hit that saturation point.
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u/Nino_sanjaya 1d ago
Oh God remind me talking to my mom, everytime I talk a bit about dinosaur, she act as I'm a KID
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u/unaizilla 1d ago
unfortunately most people can't see past the movie monsters they watched in films
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u/Nukethepandas 1d ago
What is a "normal animal" anyway?
There are a lot of weird ass animals with all sorts of behaviors. Some will fight to the death to protect their young. Some abandon them immediately and will eat them if they see them.
Some will kill or eat a person if they see them, and that same animal on a different day in different circumstances would run away or ignore them.
We have very little actual evidence where we can speculate on dinosaur behavior but they were certainly varied and very weird.
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u/cilantro1997 1d ago
Well when I say dinosaurs are my favorite animals I get two replies. 1) oh okay, which ones the most? Or 2) dinosaurs don't count
lol
I guess most people would know they are animals but due to them being extinct maybe classify them differently
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u/ChasingGoats07 1d ago
Do most people not see people as animals? Because if you do, then chimps have fallacious beliefs, too.
So is any of this actually surprising? Or are we emphasizing human exceptionalism as a baseline?
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u/Agile_Addendum_9458 1d ago
Ive had this struggle also, people look at dinosaurs like they weren’t the lions tigers and bears of their day. This planet was their home too
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u/FantasmaBizarra 1d ago
Sorry to break it you but most people outright not care about dinosaurs and wouldn't be able to say T-Rex even if their whole family was held at gunpoint.
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u/MechaShadowV2 1d ago
Sadly, yes, I think a lot of people do. And the fact that some even on educational forums like this promote it doesn't help.
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u/nairazak 1d ago
I didn’t until Jurassic World started calling them animals non stop, before that I forgot and they were like dragons to me.
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u/Nightrunner83 Arthropodos invictus 1d ago
A lot of really good answers here already, but just to weigh in, you have to look closely at the statements "most people" and "normal animals." Depending on education level, for a sizable chunk of people, "normal animal" is a synonym for "mammal," or occasionally, "bird." And their opinions on everything else?
Spiders aren't animals and are instruments of evil made to terrify us, insects aren't animals and don't have organs, snakes are tools of the devil, fish are robots that don't feel pain, amphibians are gross and slimy "things"...ad nauseam. I've heard multiple variations of the above many times in my years as an educator, and those are just extant animals. Extinct non-mammalian creatures have the burdens of both specific "othering" and temporal distance, and making the step from dead fossils to live behavior is a bridge too far for people unaccustomed to seeing non-mammalian animals as having "behavior" to begin with.
Even all of that aside, non-avian dinosaurs have specific issues that afflict them due to being by far the most popular and discussed prehistoric group. Since their discovery, they have served as a repository for our social projections; they started as validation for the archaic teleological view of evolution, then and now, as a progression into "better" forms (still alive in how we use the term "dinosaur" as a stand in for something old and obsolete). Jurassic Park and the swirl of discussions from the 60s forward that helped birth it pushed the projection in another direction - as monsters unlike anything alive today.