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I liked dinosaurs alot too when i was little

danger will robinson wrote:Dinos are pretty easy for me, considering I've wanted to be a paleontologist since I was four. I learned all of them from my picture books when I was little. However, how do you know the difference between corals and sponges? They look the same!

Sponges have spicules. Astraeospongia is pretty easy, it's shaped kinda like a vase, and it has little star-patterns on it (those are the spicules).
Corals are easy as well. Tabulated corals are kinda layered; i remember that favosites is kinda like a bunch of stacks, while halysites is like a maze, if that helps. Hexagonaria has hexagon shapes on it, and septastraea is just the random coral.
Horn coral kinda looks like hydnoceras, but horn coral looks like a horn.

gneissisnice wrote: Sponges have spicules. Astraeospongia is pretty easy, it's shaped kinda like a vase, and it has little star-patterns on it (those are the spicules).
Corals are easy as well. Tabulated corals are kinda layered; i remember that favosites is kinda like a bunch of stacks, while halysites is like a maze, if that helps. Hexagonaria has hexagon shapes on it, and septastraea is just the random coral.

yups...thats pretty much the rule of thumb i followed...well, id say that astraeospongia has flower-like spicules but flower and stars are pretty much the same. favosites looks like a honeycomb more or less and halysites looks like its wrapped in chains. i agree with hexagonaria too....and since i never really could find a lot of info on septastraea...i would just say that whichever one isn't halysites, favosites, etc. is septastraea

Do we need to know the six basic body types of dinosaurs (sauropods, theropods, ornithopods, stegosaurs, armored, and horned)? It wasn't in the list, but I think it might be something to know. Also, does anyone know the bone differences between carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores? At Regionals, we were handed a random sample(not a tooth- that would be easy) of bone and were asked to identify it's diet among the 3 types.

It would have to be the right bone. The level of the jaw joint will tell you diet without teeth, and there are a number of bones that will tell you the group, which will tell you the diet - like the predentary, or the pubis, or sometimes the maxilla, vertebrae or toes.

Oh, that makes a little more sense. Thanks. We just guessed, and I'm pretty sure we got it wrong.

courage7856 wrote:Do we need to know the six basic body types of dinosaurs (sauropods, theropods, ornithopods, stegosaurs, armored, and horned)? It wasn't in the list, but I think it might be something to know. Also, does anyone know the bone differences between carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores? At Regionals, we were handed a random sample(not a tooth- that would be easy) of bone and were asked to identify it's diet among the 3 types.

Are you serious?!? Handed a bit of BONE and asked to identify the diet? Did you all ever get a test key? I'd like to know the answer and the test-writer's rationale behind the question. (I mean, I'm sure it's a great question and make a lot of sense, but sheesh...)

maggymay wrote:

courage7856 wrote:Do we need to know the six basic body types of dinosaurs (sauropods, theropods, ornithopods, stegosaurs, armored, and horned)? It wasn't in the list, but I think it might be something to know. Also, does anyone know the bone differences between carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores? At Regionals, we were handed a random sample(not a tooth- that would be easy) of bone and were asked to identify it's diet among the 3 types.

Are you serious?!? Handed a bit of BONE and asked to identify the diet? Did you all ever get a test key? I'd like to know the answer and the test-writer's rationale behind the question. (I mean, I'm sure it's a great question and make a lot of sense, but sheesh...)

That is a bit mean of the test writer. A tooth would be easy to ID the diet, but anything else is just hard.

well coprolites wouldn't have been that hard

Well, if they give you the hip bones, you should be able to narrow it down to saurician or ornithician, and then maybe find the diet from that?