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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 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, Dimetrodon, Plesiosaur and Pteranodon
• Silhouettes in "don't seem like dinosaurs / are dinosaurs": Penguin, Egret, Falcon, Pigeon and Ostrich
• Silhouettes in "don't seem like dinosaurs / are not dinosaurs": Squirrel, Stapler, Bicycle , Human (here depicted as Cueball) and Pineapple

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, 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.

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

Transcript

[A 2x2 chart where each of the four quadrants contains five silhouettes. These depicts 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.]

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