"Jurassic World 3" and "Prehistoric Planet" is hot!What is the real dinosaur world?

[Global Times Reporter Fan Wei] accompanied by the popularity of "Jurassic World 3" and the word of mouth of "Prehistoric Planet", the "real dinosaur world" once again vividly displayed in front of the audience. But what is the reality of the dinosaur world built on the screen? If these prehistoric giants are really resurrected, can they find suitable habitats in the modern world?

What is the real dinosaur?

Starting from the release of "Jurassic Park" in 1993, various dinosaurs made by computer stunts have deeply rooted in the hearts of people. But the dinosaurs of this series of movies are not fully in line with scientific understanding. For example, dinosaurs may speak, but they may not growl; dinosaurs may grow feathers instead of scales ... Scholar Jack Horner admits that he and director Speylberg just tried to combine "education and entertainment so that people have more interests to understand dinosaurs."

In the eyes of professional researchers, the film and television works have no truth to shaping the image of the dinosaur, but they do not need to blame, because humans' awareness of dinosaurs is still deepening. Xing Lida, an associate professor of China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and young paleontologist Xing Lida, said in an interview with the Global Times reporter that most of the dinosaurs in the "Jurassic Park" series of movies are not fully realistic. The pursuit of thrilling elements is more than the pursuit of authenticity, and because of human understanding of dinosaurs, it is far from what you can tell the director or screenwriter that the image of the dinosaur is like.

Due to the insufficient scientific understanding at the time, the typical example of the dinosaur image biased was the Linglie Dragon, which is the prototype of the most famous dinosaur star in Jurassic Park. Xing Lida introduced that in 2007, paleontologists discovered six feather stem tumors on a fossil of the forearm ticked by the Mongolian Plateau. "The feather tumor on the bird bone can be used to fix feathers, and the emergence of feather stem tumors appear on the dragon bone heads." However, when the first "Jurassic Park" was released in 1993, scientists also I don't know that the Lingling Dragon has feathers, so the skin of Raptors is more similar to reptiles. But after this image was successful, the later "Jurassic Park" and "Jurassic World" series of films were not easy to modify. "Maybe to make up for some kind of makeup, the aura dragon close relatives that appeared in" Jurassic World 3 ", the dragon, the whole body covered with feathers."

In Xing Lida's view, the most interesting image of the film may be Shuanglong Dragon. In "Jurassic Park", there is a pair of crowns on the top of this dinosaur, and the umbrella lizard like an umbrella lizard has a sudden opening when emotions. But the real double dragon does not have a pair of crown on the top of the head, the remaining characteristics are not.

Peng Guangzhao, a member of the National Poor Fossil Expert Committee and a researcher at the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, told the Global Times reporter that at present, our speculation on dinosaur image mainly comes from dinosaur fossils, which makes it easier for dinosaurs to confirm. The biggest tyrannosaurus is derived from a bone dragon bone fossil discovered in Canada in 1991. It is estimated through this fossil that it is 13 meters long and weighs more than 8,800 kg. "

However, it is difficult to completely accurately infer the real appearance, color, and skin texture of the dinosaurs. Peng Guangzhen said, "We mainly restore the image of dinosaurs through the characteristics of dinosaur fossils, but fossils are sometimes incomplete, so each new discovery may update our perception of dinosaur image."

In addition to bones, the factors that determine the appearance of the dinosaur also include muscles and some soft tissues, but only a few dinosaurs can luck to retain a small part of the skin or skin seal fossils. The new fossils discovered in recent decades have also brought out some cognition of human dragon image. According to Peng Guangzhen, some dinosaur skin seal fossils show whether the dinosaurs are long scales or long feathers. "In the past 20 years, we have found that many types of dinosaurs have some kind of fluff or even whole body feathers. Approach, so we think that modern birds are actually a branch of dinosaurs evolved. "

Why do real dinosaurs do?

In science fiction movies, each dinosaur is given a clear "personality" and plays a positive and negative role. The meat -eating bully dragon and alien special dragon's eyes are cunning and brutal cold blood, which seems to be a natural villain; herbivorous wrist dragons and sword dragons are huge and slow, and naturally give people a thick positive image. However, is the real dinosaur habit as "good and evil" as performed in the movie, and how do we determine the true habit of living about dinosaurs about 200 million years ago?

According to Peng Guangzhen, nearly 2,000 kinds of dinosaurs have been found around the world, and their daily behavior and lifestyle can be said to be very different. Now we can only speculate the habits of dinosaurs through some characteristics presented by dinosaur fossils.

"For example, the fossil characteristics of carnivorous dinosaurs and herbivorous dinosaurs are obviously different." Peng Guangzhen said that the head of carnivorous dinosaurs is large and the teeth are sharp, just like a knife, which is convenient for cutting meat. In addition, the carnivore dinosaurs are fast, so they usually walk on both feet. The hind limbs will be particularly longer compared to the forelimb, and the toes are sharp, which is conducive to predation. The head of herbivorous dinosaurs is usually smaller. To facilitate chewing plants, the teeth are usually leaf, spoon -shaped or nail -shaped. However, in the process of judging the dinosaurs' habits of fossils, some "unjust or false cases" were also caused. According to Peng Guangzhao, in the 1920s, when people discovered the fossils of the egg dragon on the Mongolian Plateau for the first time, they also discovered with it were the original horn dragon fossils and a nest of dinosaur egg fossils. Osburn, the curator of the Natural Museum of New York, who participated in the scientific examination, thought it was stealing the eggs of the original horned dragon, so he named it the Egg Dragon. However, in the 1990s, Professor Mark Mark found a complete dinosaur embryo fossil during the Mongolian Plateau. The results show that the embryo is the egg stealing itself. In addition, he also found that this embryo dinosaur egg fossil is the same as the nest dinosaur egg fossil discovered in the 1920s, that is, those dinosaur eggs are not the original horn dragon, but the egg dragon itself. Therefore, it may be incubating eggs, not stealing eggs. This injustice of "Egg Dragon and Egg" was still cleaned. However, according to the naming regulations of international animals, the name of the stealing dragon can no longer be changed, so this "notorious" it must continue to be used.

Xing Lida also believes that the real dinosaur behavior is a huge mystery. At present, it can only be recovered through some direct and indirect evidence. Direct evidence includes the footprint fossils of the dinosaur. For example, we found the fossils of the row of the dragons in reality. This is the direct evidence of the Chilong group living, indicating that the Linglong Dragon is indeed a group of hunting as in the movie. Another direct evidence is the gastric container of the dinosaurs, that is, the "last dinner" of the dinosaur. "For example, I found one leg of the Chilong dinosaurs and two Confucius birds in the Chinese gastrointestinal fossils. Large prey of 1/3 of your size. "

The indirect evidence is to analyze the behavioral mode of dinosaurs through finite element analysis and fluid mechanics. Xing Lida said: "My research group has used the limited element analysis method to study the tail hammer of Marson Xilong, which is known as" Asia's No. 1 Dragon ". Through the modal analysis of the tail hammer, the best hit part of the tail hammer is determined. This is also part of the behavior of Marson Dragon. "

If you pass through to this day, the dinosaurs will be cold and hungry

In "Jurassic World 3", dinosaurs have been distributed in all corners of the human world, and even the cold iceland has their figures. In such film and television works, the photography team often goes to the world to make a scene, and use the "real world+CG dinosaur image" to increase the authenticity of the movie viewing effect. However, from the perspective of paleontologists, the middle generation of dinosaur life, the climate and environment of the earth are very different from the present. Therefore, even if we can really resurrect dinosaurs now, it is difficult to find a completely suitable natural habitat for them.

Xing Lida introduced that dinosaurs have lived on the earth for about 160 million years, and have experienced a variety of complex environments during the period. Now the greenhouse climate we talk about is "like fish" for dinosaurs. Dinosaurs such as the Baiji Cuji Triangle Dragon are more suitable for the modern environment, because the contemporary climate is almost the same as that of the late Baiji period. However, for some dinosaurs living earlier, such as the triple -out -of -the -class cavity, it may only be in tropical activities near the equator. Dinosaur fossils have been found in deserts and polar places today, but in the dinosaur era, the environment in those places is completely different. Overall, the common living environment of dinosaurs is warmer and humid.

In addition, the plant composition of modern forests is very different from the dinosaur era. For planting dinosaurs such as Lianglong, which lives in Jurassic, they may be difficult to find sufficient food in the modern world ruled by clay forests and pine and cypress as food. Peng Guangzhen also believes that the modern world is extremely unfriendly for many dinosaurs. The temperature, humidity, and even oxygen content of the dinosaur life are different from the current world. The most important of which are the differences between the dinosaur era and modern vegetation. "The era of dinosaur life is mainly based on bare plants. There are many plants such as pine cypress and Su Tie. We now dominate the quilt plants, that is, only the late period of the flower plant in the dinosaur era. In the face of the problem of food shortage, especially for herbivorous dinosaurs, the impact of the alkaloids contained in quilt plants on them will have a greater impact on them. "

However, it is undeniable that the film and television works make the concept of dinosaur world more concrete, making dinosaurs a deep -disappearing creature rooted in people's hearts. Xing Lida believes that the most successful part of the dinosaur theme film represented by "Jurassic Park" is the "brainwashing" popular science of the public. "After the" Jurassic Park "series of movies, the image of the dinosaur has been disseminated with unprecedented dissemination. The public's impression of dinosaurs has changed from huge, cold blood, slow, slow, awkward, as large as high -rise buildings, small as turkey, fast Smart. Paramranologists, popular science writers have consumed the public for decades that have not changed the public, and were done by the movie. "

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