Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs are big, honkin' extinct reptiles that all children seem to love. Or at least... that is until they decide to chomp your ass up as if it were a Triscuit! Fortunately, and with rare exception, all of the dinosaurs are extinct. These hungry monsters existed more than 230 million years ago from the late Triassic period up until the end of the Cretaceous period some 65 million years ago. And yes, the Jurassic period falls somewhere in between there, which seems to be the only word in geology that anyone knows about.

Dinosaurs went extinct around 65 million years ago, the reasons behind which are still hotly debated amongst paleontologists. In film, the reasons behind this can range from sound theories such as a big giant meteor crashing into the planet, to the absurd, like aliens mucking about with the planet's ecosystem, rendering them all extinct. Then there's that ONE guy... you all know who I'm talking about, that thinks they all turned into birds.

If one looks carefully, they may still find some dinosaurs in some pretty interesting places. This may requires a little extra effort and ingenuity than most are willing to give however. Creative solutions might require exposing some lost breed to atomic radiation, allowing them to mutate into a humnungoloid alpha predator with atomic breath. Yeah... we're looking at YOU, Japan! Or, you might have to travel to some inter-dimensional world where dinosaurs cohabitate side by side with little cave boy children and Sleestaks. That could happen too. Just ask Will Ferrell.

Species
Includes some of the more popular breeds of dinosaur featured in science fiction media.

Pteradactyl
Pteradactyl's are pretty cool friggin' dinosaurs. Ask anyone. They are kind of like birds in that they have wings and beaks.

Tyrannosaurus
The Tyrannosaurus, also known as a Tyrannosaur, or T-Rex, is without question the most popular species of dinosaur. An apex predator, they stand on two legs, have short useless arms, big heads and even bigger teeth. They enjoy chasing slow-moving animals (including humans), and are not particularly picky about where they eat or poop. At one point in time, Godzilla was once thought to be a mutated T-Rex, but this was later changed to reflect a fictional breed of dinosaur dubbed (appropriately enough), a Godzillasaurus.

Tyrannosaurs play a key role in the Jurassic Park film series. The good folks at InGen, in their ongoing quest to clone the most dangerous animals on the planet, cloned a female Tyrannosaur, which they kept in an animal paddock in the park. This one escaped, causing all sorts of havoc and succeeded in killing one lawyer and a couple of velociraptors.

In the 2009 movie Land of the Lost, Explorers from the modern world by the names of Rick Marshall, Holly Cantrell and Will Stanton came to the Lost Land where they had a terrifying encounter with the dinosaur inside of an immense cavern. Running away from it, they succeeded in crossing a ravine where they believed they would be safe. At this point, Rick Marshall made a crack about the T-Rex only having a brain the size of a walnut. The angry dinosaur, whom Holly had named Grumpy, understood what Marshall had said and was greatly offended. Grumpy caught up with the group later on in the kingdom of the Sleestaks and succeeded in gobbling up Rick Marshall in one giant gulp. Fortunately, he didn't actually chew on him, and Rick was able to pass through Grumpy's digestive system and was excreted as waste. This exceedingly intimate connection forged a bond between the two and they became close pals.