r/interestingasfuck • u/Odd-Difference-1483 • 17d ago

/r/all Kangaroos are freaking scary.

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u/ParchmentNPaper 17d ago

The kangaroo pose was very a popular reconstruction for different types of dinosaurs for a long time, before we found out their tails mostly weren't very bendy and stuck out straight behind them. Fossils of iguanodons, for instance, were being mounted like this, when we now know that this is the far more accurate pose for them.

Sadly, you can't really see the tail in the 2nd pic, but I wanted to include this one, because these are mounts in the same museum, the Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. Their iguanodon fossils are some of the most famous dinosaur fossils there are. They keep the kangaroo iguanodons on display, as they've become part of the history of paleontology. They also can't remount them, because the fossils are too fragile.

Anyone who enjoys this kind of thing, check out Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong on youtube!

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u/Janderflows 17d ago

Exactly, I am sure some of those old timey paleoartists may have had a similar thought about tail use.

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u/DesertNomad505 14d ago

Somewhere in storage, I still have an old 3D wood puzzle of a TRex posed just like this, all stiff and upright with the tail dragged behind. I don't know why, but as a kid, it seemed as unlikely a pose as my big Godzilla with the shooting arm.

Thank you all for the great thread and discourse! Conversations like this make me wish I'd pursued paleontology and geology like I had wanted.

Edit: autobungle