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Latest revision as of 19:52, 31 July 2025

Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3213 xkcd comics, and only 62 (1.9%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!

 Go to this explanation

Latest comic

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

Explanation

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). 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).

Clockwise from upper left in each quadrant of the image:

  • Silhouettes in "seem like dinosaurs / are dinosaurs": stegosaurus, triceratops, tyrannosaurus, diplodocus, velociraptor
  • Silhouettes in "seem like dinosaurs / are not dinosaurs": mosasaur, quetzalcoatlus, dimetrodon, plesiosaur, pteranodon
  • Silhouettes in "don't seem like dinosaurs / are not dinosaurs": squirrel, stapler, bicycle, Cueball, pineapple
  • Silhouettes in "don't seem like dinosaurs / are dinosaurs": penguin, egret, falcon, pigeon, ostrich

The title text is a further joke about taxonomy, seemingly predicated on the assumption that staplers are biological organisms (which they are not), 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.

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.

Transcript

[A 2x2 chart containing various animals and objects.]
  • Left column: Are dinosaurs
  • Right column: Are not dinosaurs
  • Upper row: Seem like dinosaurs
  • Lower row: Don't seem like dinosaurs
[Top left (seem like dinosaurs, are dinosaurs):]
[Top right (seem like dinosaurs, are not dinosaurs):]
[Bottom left (don't seem like dinosaurs, are dinosaurs):]
[Bottom right (don't seem like dinosaurs, are not dinosaurs):]


      new topic.png  View comic discussion

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Last 7 days (Top 10)

Lots of people contribute to make this wiki a success. Many of the recent contributors above have just joined. You can do it too! Create your account here.

You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to create an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for xkcd comics, characters, What If? articles, and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd comic, it should be here.

  • The incomplete explanations are listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!

Rules

Don't be a jerk!

There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.

Please only submit material directly related to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that can legally be posted and freely edited. Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.

If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.