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Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs

|< < Prev #3204 (February 6, 2026)

Title text: Staplers are actually in Pseudosuchia, making them more closely related to crocodiles than to dinosaurs.

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Explanation

This is incomplete: This page was created by a webserver that is often described as being a dinosaur, however it is definitely not. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This comic explores the seeming paradox that certain extinct prehistoric species which are popularly thought of as being "dinosaurs" are, from a strict taxonomic viewpoint, not. It also takes into account the fact that all bird species are descended from dinosaurs and thus - again, from a strict taxonomic viewpoint - are themselves dinosaurs as well (see 1211: Birds and Dinosaurs). To illustrate this, Randall provides silhouettes of dinosaurs, of entities that are widely thought of as dinosaurs but are not, of entities that are not widely thought of as dinosaurs but are (i.e., birds), and, lastly, of entities that are neither dinosaurs nor thought of as dinosaurs (which is funny because it's so all-encompassing as to be practically meaningless, just like it would be if you replaced the word "dinosaurs" by any other plural noun, or adjective).

In reading order from upper left in each quadrant of the image:

• Silhouettes in "seem like dinosaurs / are dinosaurs": Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Diplodocus and Velociraptor
• Silhouettes in "seem like dinosaurs / are not dinosaurs": Mosasaur, Quetzalcoatlus, Pteranodon, Plesiosaur and Dimetrodon
• Silhouettes in "don't seem like dinosaurs / are dinosaurs": Penguin, Heron, Ostrich, Pigeon and may be a Falcon or Petrel
• Silhouettes in "don't seem like dinosaurs / are not dinosaurs": Squirrel, Stapler, Pineapple, Human (here depicted as Cueball) and Bicycle

The title text is a further joke about taxonomy, seemingly predicated on the assumption that staplers are biological organisms, and can thus be sorted into taxa. Pseudosuchia is in fact the clade that encompasses all crocodilians, and staplers bear a certain resemblance to the open mouth of a crocodilian. Also, "suchia" sounds a little like "sutures," and in some sense staples are pseudo sutures.

The original Linnaean taxonomy did at first have a top-level classification for "mineral" taxonomy, in addition to those for animal and plant, which in its broadest sense might allow one to assign a stapler a taxonomic relationship with dinosaurs.

Creatures that seem like dinosaurs and are dinosaurs

• Stegosaurus
• Triceratops
• Tyrannosaurus Rex, whose name literally translates to Tyrant Lizard King, was a Late Cretaceous dinosaur, living during the Maastrichtian Age at the very end of the period. It was a contemporary of Triceratops and Mosasaurs, also listed in this comic. T-Rex is arguably one of the most well-known dinosaurs, due to the recovery of intact skeletons, as well as successful marketing and pop-culture influences, such as Jurassic Park, a movie of which Randall is a known fan.
• Diplodocus
• Velociraptor

Creatures that seem like dinosaurs, but are not

Dinosaur is a paleonotology term which refers to a specific group of reptiles, based upon evolutionary lines, bone structure and living domain. However, it is also a popular science/cultural term which refers to extinct large reptiles, hence the confusion between what is scientifically included and what is culturally assumed to be included. While dinosaurs and pterosaurs had a common ancestor, the archosaur, they diverged around 250 MYA, and are distinct enough to be entirely separate lineages.

The creatures listed are:

• A mosasaur is an extinct aquatic reptile, looking similar to a dolphin, that existed at the same time as the dinosaurs. Whilst it appeared in Jurassic World, momasaurs had a different ancestor than dinosaurs
• Plesiosaurs
• Pterodons are flying reptiles
• Dimetrodon
• Quetzalcoatlus was a genus of flying pterosaurs, related to pterodons, that lived in the Maastrichtian Age alongside Mosasaurs, T-Rex, and many others. They were some of the largest flying animals in history, with wingspans up to 36 feet (11m). They were not, however, dinosaurs, as they had pterosaur ancestry.

Creatures that don't seem like dinosaurs, but are

Strictly speaking, birds are descended from dinosaurs, but that still places them in the evolutionary line, which is close enough for the comic's purposes.

• Penguin
• Heron
• Ostrich
• Pigeon
• Falcon or Petrel (both of them qualify)

Creatures that don't seem like dinosaurs, and are not

• Squirrel: mammal
• Stapler: not a living thing
• Pineapple: plant
• Human: mammal
• Bicycle: not a living thing

Transcript

[A 2x2 chart where each of the four quadrants contains five silhouettes. These depict various animals, a few objects, and a human. Above each column and to the left of each row there are a label:]

[Left column:] Are dinosaurs

[Right column:] Are not dinosaurs

[Upper row:] Seem like dinosaurs

[Lower row:] Don't seem like dinosaurs

[Here follows a list of what are in each of the four quadrants:]

[Top left (seem like dinosaurs, are dinosaurs):]

[Stegosaurus, triceratops, tyrannosaurus, diplodocus, and velociraptor.]

[Top right (seem like dinosaurs, are not dinosaurs):]

[Mosasaur, quetzalcoatlus, dimetrodon, plesiosaur, and pteranodon.]

[Bottom left (don't seem like dinosaurs, are dinosaurs):]

[Penguin, egret, falcon, pigeon, and ostrich.]

[Bottom right (don't seem like dinosaurs, are not dinosaurs):]

[Squirrel, stapler, bicycle, human (here depicted as Cueball), and pineapple.]

  Add comment        Create topic (use sparingly)       Refresh 

Discussion

Make changes, try things out, or just have fun with the wiki here! Just leave everything above the line alone, please.

---

This is a test. PoolloverNathan^{[stalk the blue seas]} 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

This is not. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | Google search | current time: 03:27) 18:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this

^furhhfghure _{guyrburgryhuyvfr} "rvhru"

interesting way of writing quotations xd

hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line

Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

hi uh its hard to get here. is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

	Soup

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	Soup

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	Soup

	Soup

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	Soup

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yum yum [citation needed]

Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve {{trout}}

This is the leaderboard:

Last 7 days (Top 50)

Rank Score Pages Changes Username 1 39 33 43 Kynde 2 22 18 22 TheusafBOT 3 20 15 21 Victoria 4 18 12 21 Elizium23 5 15 10 16 FaviFake 6 13 11 12 Qwertyuiopfromdefly 7 12 9 11 Geoff 8 9 5 10 DKMell 9 8 4 8 DollarStoreBa'al 10 8 5 7 R128 11 7 3 8 BunsenH 12 6 1 7 RadiantRainwing 13 5 2 4 Kev 14 4 1 4 David LeWine 15 4 2 3 Cheesesentience 16 4 1 3 Lordpishky 17 3 1 2 Benzaldehyde 18 3 1 2 Heleatunda 19 3 1 2 The Yeti 20 3 3 3 August Fuller 21 3 1 2 Terdragontra 22 3 3 3 Quincy 23 3 1 2 WingedCat 24 3 1 2 Christian 25 2 2 2 Barry Margolin 26 2 2 2 Utdtutyabthsc 27 2 2 2 Martin 28 2 2 2 Aplookingbill 29 2 2 2 管委会篝火无法解放军“赐额“你去呢管理哦法？ 30 2 2 2 Sean McDonough 31 2 2 2 William 32 1 1 1 ᐈGuarda!— Buen Camino Streaming Italiano Gratuito 4K 33 1 1 1 Ralfoide 34 1 1 1 Jjj 35 1 1 1 FrenchBread 36 1 1 1 Mannerisky 37 1 1 1 Pie Guy 38 1 1 1 Giraffequeries 39 1 1 1 GoogleUnofficial 40 1 1 1 Elektrizikekswerk 41 1 1 1 Nekokami 42 1 1 1 KarMann 43 1 1 1 Morgan Wick 44 1 1 1 Trimutius 45 1 1 1 Carl 46 1 1 1 Potatocakethrow 47 1 1 1 MikeTheNewGuy 48 1 1 1 AgeofScience 49 1 1 1 Coconut Galaxy 50 1 1 1 Sameldacamel34

<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown.">

More testing: hello ​ does​this​work (yes​it​does) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
        Add comment

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  Add comment        Create topic (use sparingly)       Refresh 

Discussion

Make changes, try things out, or just have fun with the wiki here! Just leave everything above the line alone, please.

---

This is a test. PoolloverNathan^{[stalk the blue seas]} 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

This is not. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | Google search | current time: 03:27) 18:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this

^furhhfghure _{guyrburgryhuyvfr} "rvhru"

interesting way of writing quotations xd

hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line

Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

hi uh its hard to get here. is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

yum yum [citation needed]

Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve {{trout}}

This is the leaderboard:

Last 7 days (Top 50)

Rank Score Pages Changes Username 1 39 33 43 Kynde 2 22 18 22 TheusafBOT 3 20 15 21 Victoria 4 18 12 21 Elizium23 5 15 10 16 FaviFake 6 13 11 12 Qwertyuiopfromdefly 7 12 9 11 Geoff 8 9 5 10 DKMell 9 8 4 8 DollarStoreBa'al 10 8 5 7 R128 11 7 3 8 BunsenH 12 6 1 7 RadiantRainwing 13 5 2 4 Kev 14 4 1 4 David LeWine 15 4 2 3 Cheesesentience 16 4 1 3 Lordpishky 17 3 1 2 Benzaldehyde 18 3 1 2 Heleatunda 19 3 1 2 The Yeti 20 3 3 3 August Fuller 21 3 1 2 Terdragontra 22 3 3 3 Quincy 23 3 1 2 WingedCat 24 3 1 2 Christian 25 2 2 2 Barry Margolin 26 2 2 2 Utdtutyabthsc 27 2 2 2 Martin 28 2 2 2 Aplookingbill 29 2 2 2 管委会篝火无法解放军“赐额“你去呢管理哦法？ 30 2 2 2 Sean McDonough 31 2 2 2 William 32 1 1 1 ᐈGuarda!— Buen Camino Streaming Italiano Gratuito 4K 33 1 1 1 Ralfoide 34 1 1 1 Jjj 35 1 1 1 FrenchBread 36 1 1 1 Mannerisky 37 1 1 1 Pie Guy 38 1 1 1 Giraffequeries 39 1 1 1 GoogleUnofficial 40 1 1 1 Elektrizikekswerk 41 1 1 1 Nekokami 42 1 1 1 KarMann 43 1 1 1 Morgan Wick 44 1 1 1 Trimutius 45 1 1 1 Carl 46 1 1 1 Potatocakethrow 47 1 1 1 MikeTheNewGuy 48 1 1 1 AgeofScience 49 1 1 1 Coconut Galaxy 50 1 1 1 Sameldacamel34

<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown.">

More testing: hello ​ does​this​work (yes​it​does) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
        Add comment