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Author: Mike Laraman

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What is a binosaur?

What is a binosaur?

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“Binosaur” is not a real word. You got me! But perhaps it could be. In much the same way that W.J.T Mitchell drew a linguistic distinction between “dinosaurs” (the prehistoric monsters as we understand them on a pop cultural level) and the Dinosauria (the real animals that are the subject of scientific research) in his 1998 work The Last Dinosaur Book, I’m proposing that binosaurs are fundamentally distinct entities from dinosaurs. Perhaps I should first illustrate the division visually: Left-hand…

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Let’s Talk about Jurassic Park: Part 4 – Dilophosaurus

Let’s Talk about Jurassic Park: Part 4 – Dilophosaurus

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Welcome back to Mike of the Mesozoic! In today’s article, I’m going to continue my series affectionately analysing the science of the dinosaur depictions in the original Jurassic Park movie and get to talking about what is probably one of the most misunderstood dinosaurs in the world: Dilophosaurus. First of all, let’s get the obvious out of the way – Dilophosaurus did not spit venom, and did not have a fleshy neck frill. Thanks for reading, everybody! Tune in next…

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How Accurate Are the Dinosaurs Of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom?

How Accurate Are the Dinosaurs Of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom?

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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has been out for a couple of days now in the UK, and having seen it, it’s time for me to do the thing and answer the question: just how accurate are the new dinosaurs? First, however, let me preface everything with a gigantic SPOILER WARNING! I will be going into detail on things that happen in the movie so please be advised that it is best to watch it first. The blog will still be…

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Let’s Talk about Jurassic Park: Part 3 – Tyrannosaurus

Let’s Talk about Jurassic Park: Part 3 – Tyrannosaurus

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Hello and welcome back to Mike of the Mesozoic! It’s been a while since the last post – it took me quite a time to really get to the essence of what I wanted to say about Jurassic Park‘s Tyrannosaurus rex scenes. T. rex is probably one of the best-understood dinosaurs in all of palaeontology, and therefore much that can be said about it. So let’s continue our adventures in affectionately analysing the movie through the lens of modern science,…

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Let’s Talk about Jurassic Park: Part 2 – Triceratops

Let’s Talk about Jurassic Park: Part 2 – Triceratops

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Welcome back to Mike of the Mesozoic! In the last post, we discussed issues of palaeontology and accuracy surrounding Giraffatitan, the first dinosaur to appear in Jurassic Park. This time around we’re moving on to the famous scene with the sick Triceratops, as brought to life by the wizards at Stan Winston Studios. Before I fully get my Nerd Hat on, I’m going to take a minute to talk about the greatness of this sequence. Has there ever been a…

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