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? ------------------------ 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.
i know exactly what he is.. HE'S A DINOBOT. it's that simple. for all of these dinobots.. we'll have to wait and see what happens in the movies and see if they explain their alt modes or not.. other wise.. they're all just your standard well known dinosaur looking transformers. it's really that simple.
But there have been way to many threads about what each Dinobot really is. The simplest answer is that Grimlock is a space T-Rex with horns with a dragonish body, Strafe is a two headed space Pterodactyl with teeth, Scorn is a space Spinosaurus with more spines, and Slash is a space Raptor. The need for accuracy shouldn't matter because they are all just general forms of dinosaurs with their own creative twists on them. I don't know why there always has to be big debates over this.
If the rest of the Dinobots are anything to go by, he's a bastardised mishmash of a couple of different dinosaur forms, either (in-universe) deliberately, coincidentally or in error. That was probably like the least helpful of answers ever lol
He's just a fresh creation based on an amalgamation of pteranodon parts... It's not worth overthinking it as I doubt the designers were trying to replicate any particular species.
Yes but Gwolf's are the only ones with any thought put into them, beyond "Euuugghhh!! The Dinobots aren't exactly how I imagined them in my own brain, I'm gonna run into micheal bay's house and kick a table over!!! Raaaaaahhhh" Don't listen to them Dinosaur guy! You do good work!
I'm guessing a dragon based on a Pterosaur, or something like that. The two heads are probably the biggest clue.
But something that wasn't meant to be debated shouldn't be debated. They are just custom alien dinosaurs, nothing more and nothing less.
Yeah none of them are accurate, they're all ridiculous, and not necessarily a specific species in any way. Slug has so much going on, none of which is a triceratops, save for the three face horns. They're imagined space dinos. Normally, I hate Bay designs with an acute passion, but these Dinobots are really great. I'm liking how they all look like medieval knights in botmode. I feel they do a nice job of being sci-fi dinos of the modern day, and as the G1's were sci-fi space dinos, I feel them to be fine tribute. Good stuff, these Dinobots.
Unless the movie explains its due to a mish-mashed accident where the ship lands on a group of Dinosaurs and the Dinobots scan their squished remains (Explaining the issues with them not accurately representing the real creatures) then I'm happily going to hunt down a designer for this film and get them to explain how they think that a two-headed flying dinosaurs existed - should prove quite comedic :3 The main issues with the Dinobots come more from the fact they are supposed to be based on real life creatures in a real world setting. Did Bay and the team only make this design for the Dinobots - or do they really think that a two-headed flying dinosaur existed? Do they think the real Dinosaurs look like the Dinobot designs they've made? will they include dinosaurs in their film that look like this that explain where the Dinobots got their alt-mode? Given the scene stating that we'll see how the Dinobots evolved on Earth - I have to question just how they plan on showing this on film and I'm guessing a lot of fans have a similar view point. It all depend on how its portrayed in the film - if its explained badly and they try to pass these off as being alt-modes scanned from real dinosaurs then I can understand fan outrage - considering they'll be f*cking with established creatures in a movie that they keep trying to market as 'grounded in reality'
I really like your analyses! But it's impossible to guess his dino self since his heads are entirely different. He's like a chimera like you said. His right head looks like a cross between a pteranodon and quetzalcoatlus, while the other one might slightly be inspired by coloborhynchuses.
