Main Page
Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3193 xkcd comics,
and only 60
(2%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!
Latest comic
| Sauropods |
 Title text: Vertebrae Georg |
Explanation
This comic attempts to correct people on the skeletal structure of sauropod dinosaurs, claiming that most individuals actually had short necks and tails, and the "queen" of the colony had an enormous number of vertebrae, possibly resembling a snake with legs. The idea is that paleontologists misconstructed the skeletons, averaging the vertebrae out between all specimens, and not giving most of them to the queen.
In reality, most of the animal species that have colonies with queens are insects, particularly termites, ants, bees, and wasps. No sauropods or other reptiles are known to do so.
The title-text references Spiders Georg, an internet meme character who eats over 10,000 spiders a day, skewing the average, creating the factoid that "the average person swallows 3 spiders a year."
Transcript
- [Top panel: A sauropod with a normal long neck and tail, crossed out with a large red X.]
- [Bottom panel: Two sauropods with very short necks and tails, with a green check mark drawn in between and an eel-like supposed "sauropod queen" situated above them, who is predominantly composed of sauropod necks winding off both sides of the panel, with a single head and tip of the tail visible. The sauropod queen and the sauropod on the left look at each other.]
- [Caption below the comic:]
- Thanks to modern paleontological reconstructions, we now know that most sauropods had short necks, and all those extra vertebrae belonged to the sauropod colony's queen.
Is this out of date? .
New here?
Last 7 days (Top 10) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to sign up for an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for comics, characters, themes and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd web comic, it should be here.
- If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this Wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.
- Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.
- You can browse the comics from List of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.
- There are incomplete explanations 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 (and helping everyone better understand) 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.
