It occurred that posting seven different threads on the taxonomy of the Dinobots was going to get a little ridiculous so I decided to establish this master thread. I've copied in the Grimlock, Strafe and Snarl. Slug will be written up in the next couple of days. Funsies!

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So I've been reading threads on this and being generally quite amused. So, to pass a few minutes before I have to head out, I thought it would be fun to sit down and try and finalise Grimlock's specific identification. Now given Grimlock lacks bones, and I'm not technically a dinosaurologist, these will be general identifiers, rather than hard and fast characterisers.

First of all, he can be identified as a theropod dinosaur by the combination of a carnivorous dentition, a bipedal parasagittal gait, strong suggestions of endothermy (he probably breathes fire) and having undergone some reduction in the size of his fore-limbs.

Now, given Grimlock's robust profile


We can further identify he is more derived than the basal Triassic animals such as the small coelurosaurs or basal neotheropodan, suggesting he belongs in either tyrannosauroid coelurosaurs, ceratosauria or tetanurae. However we note that he possess reduced forelimbs which are not only reduced but possess an even number of of externalised digits. This feature is unknown in tetanurae, but present in tyrannosaurid tyrannosaurs and abelisaurid ceratosaurs.

Now, we've brought him down to two families. So we need to compare the most easily identified elements we can see in Grimlock's photos i.e. the head and the hands





In abelisaurs, the forelimb has undergone severe reduction, with the radius and ulna becoming near rectangular, the wrist becoming immobile and the digits, of which there are four, becoming extremely stubby. This limb is fully functional in terms of up/down forward/backward rotation but incapable of bending and is overall poorly muscled.



In tyrannosaurs, the forelimb is simlilarly reduced, but not the the same degree. The arm remains fully functional, bending at the elbow and wrist. The digits are reduced to two externalised and one splint-like internalised. The fingers possess large, strongly recurved claws. Finally, the arm is extremely well muscled for its size, suggesting that while small, it is very powerful.



Looking at the skulls of abelisaurs, using Carnotaurus as a proxy, three note worthy features are the jaw, skull length and cranial ornamentation. The lower jaw of Carnotaurus is relatively gracile, and considerably smaller than the upper jaw. This suggests a less than powerful bite, which would mostly functioned best as a grip or soft-tissue assaulter. The skull itself is extremely deep, giving it an almost box-like appearance. It possesses postorbital horns which are oriented laterally, giving the skull profile a T-shaped cross-section when view from the front.


The skull of tyrannosaurs, with Tarbosaurus used as a proxy, is shows notable features in the same areas. The lower jaw is deep and robust, with large spike-like teeth. The skull is elongate with a sub-rectangular appearance and there is a lack of lateral horns.


While the horns are a problematic issue (one moment please), there is considerably more cross-over in the morphology of the skull and limbs for Grimlock with Tarbosaurus than Carnotaurus. However, horns aside, Grimlock shares some notable differences in the skull morphology with Tarbosaurus. The nose is more boxlike, lacking the slightly rounded snouth and the is a notable dip along the skull line. His skull is also more robust when viewed anteriorly. This suggests features common to Tyrannosaurus.

That said, the horns remain problematic, and the forelimbs are remarkably robust.

My conclusion is that Grimlock is a Tyrannosaurus, however not a Tyrannosaurus rex. I suggest the erection of a new species, Tyrannosaurus machina. Diagnosable as a Tyrannosaurus possessing unusually long forelimbs and posteriorly facing postorbital horns.



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Yes, on a Friday afternoon I'm looking for things to procrastinate over, so I decided amuse myself with yet another of these rambles and look at the most troublesome of the Dinobots, Strafe.

Why is Strafe troublesome?

Remarkably, it's not the two heads.

So, working from the POV that Strafe's second head and tail is due to a conjoined abberation...what the hell is he?

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First of all, Strafe is easily placed in pterosauria based on his being a winged reptile with an elongate rostrum/beak, quadrapedalism, etc etc. I could actually find the paper with all the pterosaur characters but he is definitely a pterosaur.

Now things get complicated.

He has been announced as being a Pteranodon longiceps, a well known pterosaur from the Niobara Formation in the us. For reference here's the skull of the typical Pteranodon



And here's Strafe



The skull structure is completely different. He's got teeth, his crest extends quite far in front of his eyes and not very far away from the back of the skull (seen in females and juveniles, but they don't have an anterior crest). His jaw is much shorter jaw full of teeth. If we look at the body, Strafe has very lark foreclaws and an elongate tail. He's nothing like the more lightly built Pteranodon, or any animal in the Pteranodon lineage, with the possible exception of Istiodactylus but that has a highly distinct dentition lacking here. So he's definitely not a Pteranodon.

Could he be another "advanced pterosaur". Well no. Even though some Cretaceous pterosaurs retained their teeth, none retained a long tail.



So is he something along the line of Rhamphorhynchus or some of the earlier pterosaurs?

No again. Strafe has a large "blank area" near the frontal crest which is positioned in the same place as the large skull window seen in "advanced" pterosaurs. This means that Strafe cannot be basal, and in fact shows both basal and derived features.

So Strafe is a bizzare hybrid, a chimera of some sort from some unknown group.

No.

Again.

In 2009 we found this animal



Darwinopterus is considered a key evolutionary step. It has the head of an [advanced pterosaur and the body of a basal one. It is literally like you chopped the head off of one and glued it onto another. Which is pretty much what Strafe is. So amazingly Strafe is a Darwinopterus type animal, belonging to the family Wukongopteridae. However he is definitely not Darwinopterus. Size apart (Darwinopterus is quite small), he's construction is considerably more robust, with massive forelimbs and a heavy set skull. His jaw is shorter, his teeth do not extend to the tip, his tail is proportionally much longer, he has a unique crest morphology etc.

Strafe is the most robust wukongopterid known, and should be put in an entirely new genus and species. Perhaps something like Robustodraco but that's debatable. Regardless, Strafe has the interesting honour of being the first wukongopterid on the big screen. Ever.


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Heading to my bed but thought i'd have some fun beforehand. So, you get a double one today...FUNSIES! Plus this is going to be a properly short one.

So, what is Snarl, the guy who may not be in the movie.



Snarl is interesting because he's by far the most conservative of the dinobots. He lacks many of the exaggerated features of the others, so it makes my job easier.

Despite several people's arguments of ankylosaur features, Snarl is almost indistinguishable from the Stegosauridae. The elongate and thin head, the relatively thin body, the sagittal plates and the tail spikes (thagomizers), classic stegosaurid. The lack of strongly spike-like plates or well developed shoulder spikes exclude all but perhaps...four taxa, all of which are in the Stegosaurinae.

(god bless wiki_



Miragaia is distinguished from Snarl due to its quite thin plates and its hyper-elongate neck.


Wuerhosaurus has quite bizarre square plates so shouldn't be included.

This leaves us with Hesperosaurus


And of course Stegosaurus



Unfortunately...this is kinda where we hit a wall. Both of these animals have diamond plates...and given the limited information Snarl presents us, that's basically our big identifier. The arrangement of the plates varies based on reconstruction. Hell, even the number of thagomizers can vary at times. At this data scale it would be difficult to establish genus or species, whether its something new or just a variant within a taxon.

This gives us our first stonewalling, and spoiler, not our last. I cannot in good conscience place Snarl in either an established taxon or a new one. I can however give him a family level identification, and I argue that Snarl is an indeterminate stegosaurine stegosaurid. Sadly, I don't think a strong enough argument can be made to get better taxonomic resolution.

 

I think I speak for everyone when I say, "so what the hell is slag?"  

 

A lady of ill repute sir.

In all honesty, it's going to be a hard one because to understand a lot of the problems with him, you have to understand the underlying issues with ceratopsians in general.

History lesson, there shall be!

 

Wooo

 

Gwolfv2:

Amazing thorough presentation-you know your stuff!

However, I'm willing to bet that Bay & Company are giving us an extreme-cinematic-liberties-taken-not-scientifically-accurate-version of robotic dinosaurs. Hollywood 99.9% percent of the time is more concerned with $$$$$ than historic or scientific accuracy. I'd be interested in knowing Bay's and the Dinobot designer's answer to the question you posed.

In closing, IF I was making this film, I'd hire you as a consultant on this matter.

 

I would hire him too.

 

SCORN, SCORN, SCORN please my good sir!!!

 

Slug: A history of crazy bad science.

So Slug. The extreme problem child of the Dinobots.

Categorising Slug, and the inherent difficulty therein requires a brief history lesson on the quagmire that is ceratopsian taxonomy.

First of all, check out this picture of a Triceratops.


Now ignore the head for a moment, and look at the body. One of the biggest problems in categorising ceratopsians is that they have incredibly conservative bodies. That body plan (relatively short tail, curved back, short neck etc) is found in every single ceratopsian, from Protoceratops to Triceratops. Regardless of the size or age, the body remains the same. Which means it is next to useless in helping us identify species. There are a couple of minor characters that can be used but you need a truly expert eye to recognise them. So how do you usually identify species in ceratopsians? The head. The head is by far and away the most common feature with specific use. Look at the image below.



As you can see, the heads show wild variation. Their relative lengths, the number and shape of the horns, the frills, the frill spikes, each of these appears to vary with each taxon and is the most reliable way of separating them, especially when you have rocks which might produce several ceratopsians from the same time and region.

However...

There's a problem with this.

Ceratopsian species count is CONSTANTLY going up and down as animals are lumped together, or split apart...because of the variation in the head.

Lets use Triceratops as a case study. Currently, there are two species recognised, Triceratops porsus and Triceratops horridus. However, in 1990...there were between 20 and 30 species of Triceratops. Why? Because the species were based on variation of the frill and horns...which a study in the mid-nineties pointed out can show wild degrees of variation with sex, age and just plain individual differentiation. The differences were so common, every new Triceratops was placed into a new species and the idea you were seeing differences between individuals of the same species was hand waved away. Recent years have actually seen an increase in confusion. You may all have heard of the Torosaurus/Triceratops debacle in the last few years, but here's another example. Look at Triceratops in the image above (number 35 and 39). Now look at numbers 34 and 36. 34 is Eotriceratops, currently the record holder for largest horned dinosaur. 36 is an unnamed animal, thought to be a new genus, from Hell's Creek. Now, I want you to tell me why these animals are not Triceratops horridus, and then I want you to consider if the differences could be attributable to individualism. Personally...I think they're just Triceratops...but I could be seeing less variation than there actually is.

Basically, if you want to stir up a palaeontological hornet's nest, do horned dinosaurs.


Now, with that in mind...let's look at Slug.

[Since the image above covers my needs for this, expect less photos in this section than normal]



One of the first challenges is which family of ceratopsians does Slug belong to. There are two major ones, the Centrosaur line (on the left of the above image) and the Triceratops line (on the right). Each has a broad general trend, but I think you'll agree there's a lot of cross over. Bizzarely, the easiest way to divide the groups is by using the face. Longer snouts are found in the Triceratops line, as well as the big brow horn/medium sized nose horn combo.



While Slug's snout is a little stubby, I'm happy to place him on the Triceratops evolutionary lineage, technically called Chasmosaurinae.

Next up we have to consider broad skull morphology.

Slug has a fairly robust nose horn and brow horns with a distinct curvature, quiate a sharp turn to them. He also has well developed lateral "horns" on his cheeks, and a quite round frill. The frill morphology is key. Short frills are uncommon in chasmosaurs, and best known, but not exclusive to, the family Triceratopsini, not surprisingly Triceratops and its relatives. And of the short frilled forms, only this family has a well developed nose horn. Here things become a little bit more murky, as his face is relatively conservative in most respects. Even the frill spikes are not particularly exaggerated. The only distinguishing cranial feature left are the unusual spikes on the lower jaw. But they're not the only unusual feature. As has been noted, Slug has an array of spikes and spines, most notably on the tail. This has been argued against several times.

However, we now believe it is likely Triceratops had SOME sort of structures on its hind quarters at least.



Psittacosaurus, a distant relative, possessed well developed, keratinous structures on its tail. And there are several Triceratops which MAY (I emphasize may) have had attachment points for similar structures. This had led to reconstructions such as these.




However, with Grimlock, I already used the inclusion of spikes and such to differentiate species, given how they seem to be bony not keratinous. However, I believe the scenario is not the same. Grimlock possesses horns in a spot where no such structure has ever been identified before. Slug has them exactly where you would expect them to be, but has replaced keratin with bone. It might be argued they are more like antlers than quills perhaps, or that Slug replaced the core of his quills with a bone core to increase robustness. Regardless, I think it is acceptable to use them as a differentiator here.

So, Slug is quite confidently placed in Triceratopsini. But should he be placed in an established genus as a new species, should he be given a new genus and species...or should we consider that he is showing a previously unknown level of variation in a population. I personally think the facial spikes and bony quills are enough to separate him from previous species but perhaps not genus. It's debatable...too debatable for my tastes.

Therefore I suggest Slug be referred to as an indeterminate Triceratopsini, with the strong possibility but not guarantee he represents a wholly new taxon.

 

i'm going to freak the hell out.

grimlock is a t rex
slug is a triceratops
slog is a brachiosaurus
snarl is a stegosaurus
scorn is a spinosaurus
slash is a raptor
strafe is a pterodactyl

it's that simple.. they're all the most common obvious dinosaurs with artistic licenses.

none of them are in scale with actual dinosaurs..

we'll see how they're introduced and what their reasoning is.

also.. look at a lot of the transformers vehicles.. they're all their basic vehicle model, but a lot of them have after market kits thrown on to them. why?.. because they look cool. that's the best analogy for these dinobots.. they're all normal commonly known dinosaurs with after market body kits.

it's really that simple.

 

Spoiler for later.

Slog isn't a Brachiosaurus. At all. He's something already known, actually he's the easiest to identify of the bunch. But he's noooo Brach.

And remember kids, tis ALL in good fun.

 

I'm getting so bored of replies like this. You're obviously missing the point of these threads.

If you don't like them, just stay away.

 

Don't have a cow, bro. Frankly, I don't get why you have a problem with what is only an inoffensive fun exercise in creativity. Of course Michael Bay's movies aren't exactly paragons of scientific(in some cases, historical) accuracy, but therein lies the problem. Blockbuster movies often brush aside accuracy for the sake of fun, but it risks perpetuating common misconceptions. I commend GWolfv2 for trying to bridge the gap between the movie's obvious artistic license and modern scientific theory while trying to educate those of us who aren't fluent in paleontology.


EDIT: And if Slog's scientific name makes no comment on his oddly phallic growths, I quit.

 

I've a question for you Mr GWolf Dino Dude, based on what we know about dinosaurs mass and muscle, how Strong and fast do you think our oversized MV Dinosaurs could be? In both flesh and blood, and Cybertronian (a lot of speculation I know  )builds...

 

Agreed, its really just speculation and this sort of over-analysis can be fun to read or entertaining.

The Dinobots themselves are a compilation of different aspects just for the sake of selling toys and being diverse.

The only issue I have with them at all is if they try passing off Swoop or other Dinobots as an actual dinosaur that existed in the past or if they change the looks of the dinosaurs in the past to reflect the Dinobots.

 

So your saying, that by your "dino" standards, that this was meant to entertain? I feel stupid now....

...still think I ain't real. 

 

I think you're real!  

 

You are seriously missing the point of these threads, they are meant to be fun, the point of them is clearly not getting to you.

 

Extremely enjoying your posts, man.  

Especially liked Strafe's. Learned some stuff I hadn't known before! I also much agree with your stance on ceratopsian diversity.

 

solus! what did I tell you!

 

that's such a touchy subject!