stegosauri

From about the first to the fifth grade I was very into dinosaurs. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up during this time my response was always that I wanted to be a paleontologist. About half of the time I would have to explain what a paleontologist does. I was probably about the only kid at the time who wanted to be an archaeologist for a reason that had nothing to do with Indiana Jones.

The dinosaur that I liked the most was the stegosaurus. There was no major reason for this other than I thought it was the coolest looking dinosaur. I still like the stegosaurus, if only for nostalgia's sake.

One other, albeit minor, reason to like the stegosaurus is that, while it probably minded its own business, it still had a very cool means of defending itself. I would love to have seen the stegosaurus use the spikes at the end of its tail to fend off a predator. Even the name for the spikes, the "thagomizer," is entertaining, as it originated in a Far Side comic.

My interest in dinosaurs was fading at roughly the same time that the movie Jurassic Park was released. I always viewed the dinosaurs that were portrayed very much in the Jurassic Park movies as johnny-come-latelies. As such, I have never had any love lost for raptors. They may have been incredibly efficient killers, but they still lacked cool, spiky tails.