214

Growl
Posted on April 10, 2021 by David M Willis

214 thoughts on “Growl”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Untitled Dina Design

    1. Clif

      Hompk!

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        An interesting idea, but it seems to conflate the oral/vocal capabilities of things with beaks and things with jaws. That doesn’t strike me as terribly consistent. As well, birds are descendants of theropods, so sauropods may again be completely different vocally.

        1. ischemgeek

          The further away you go from Aves the less bird-like dinosaurs were in anatomy generally, so their vocal resonances would have been different.

          It’s very unlikely a titanosaur would have sounded like a bird. But raptors – and especially the stem birds I’d guess sounded quite bird-like.

          To say nothing of the great diversity of vocal abilities in modern birds – there’s no evidence to suggest dinosaurs didn’t communicate with sound and quite a bit to suggest many would have been very social (not all to be sure but dinosaurs were probably more diverse than mammals are now, allowing a wide array of body plans and ecological niches from herding herbivores to solitary apex predators and everything in between). Given the wide diversity of vocalizations in modern birds which exhibit a small shadow of the clade’s former diversity, it’s very unlikely to say only a single sound would have represented an anger or hunting call.

          Tl;de: Both. Both is good. 😛

      2. anonymousethatscurriesinthedarkness

        Attack of the Cobra-chickens

    2. Needfuldoer

      [Speech bubble with the DoA favicon in it]

  2. Sirksome

    Ah it all makes sense now.

    1. Sirksome

      Also we need to talk about Dina’s new power to apparently change shirts in less than an instant.

      1. Nono

        She’s holding it in front of her, like when people try on shirts without changing clothes.

      2. Yumi

        She’s not wearing the shirt in the last panel, just holding it up to her body.

      3. Switchchris23

        she was just laying the shirt over herself, like how you would look in the mirror to see how a shirt looks on you without trying it on.

        1. Sirksome

          Well now I’m just disappointed Dina doesn’t have a new power. Thanks everybody for correcting me (and taking a little bit of joy from my life.) *The last part is partial sarcasm*

      4. RassilonTDavros

        Hate to be that guy, but she’s actually just laying it on top of her body to make sure it’s roughly the right size, not actually wearing it. Only Becky can defy the laws of shirt physics.

        1. Sirksome

          This reminds me of all the shit the comments gave Becky for destroying Carol’s dress in that moment. I wonder how peeps feel about that now? I mean it’s still kind of a jerk move, but Carol definitely deserved that and more in my opinion.

        2. RassilonTDavros

          Did… did people actually think she’d destroyed it? Did they not realize it was a momentary burst of cartoon physics? (checks old comments) Apparently so. Huh.

          And yeah, I have pretty much no sympathy for Carol. I dread the day she returns to the strip with some new plan to “save” Joyce and/or Becky (and/or Jocelyne, Cheese forbid). Maybe she’ll do one of those villain team-up things with (racks brain for villains who aren’t dead) Ruth’s shithead of a grandfather.

          …actually, that could lead to some terrifying shit. Carol having Howard’s well-being to hold over Ruth, who technically has authority over Joyce and Becky, therefore giving Carol a way to enforce her will over them… would bode poorly indeed.

        3. Sirksome

          I don’t think it would be quite as easy for Carol to team up with Clint. Ross and Blaine was kind of a perfect storm. Ross was already in jail for a pretty high profile incident, and Blaine was a criminal. Clint is just a retired veteran and Carol a stay at home mom. Neither seem connected enough to form an effective alliance with each other.

        4. Clif

          Just when you think there are some people you can never underestimate, they can surprise you.

        5. Wagstaff

          Remember who came close to winning that “who would win in a fight” pole.

        6. Needfuldoer

          Like I said at the time, Carol was probably just going to burn it anyway.

      5. Demoted Oblivious

        They’re all wrong. Dina, through osmosis with Becky has learned how to do ‘tear-a-way’ latered clothes as with the church dress. Here she simply reversed the process.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          Ugh, *layered

  3. Nono

    So wait, if dinosaurs were early geese, does that mean they were mean jerks?

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      I mean, yeah, probably. The predators anyway.

      Speaking of which – why does all science!art use the silliest birds for their bird!dino drawings? Eagles and falcons are also birds, and they are already badass. A feathered velociraptor would look sick as hell with hawk-style feathers and markings.

      1. eskimolos

        I think it comes down to beak shape? The more ridiculous looking birds often have beaks that look more like they do on dino bones. Also, to counter the, I suppose it could be considered elitism, of the 90s that envisioned dragon lizards.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          There was a genetic edit study done on… chickens, I think, where they removed or disabled the genes for beaks, and the baby chicks grew normal dinosaur looking mouths, full of teeth.

          So I agree with your sentiment that maybe people are matching beaks to jaws and extrapolating, but it seems clearly a misguided notion.

      2. Edwin I Callahan

        Check out some of the illustrated dinosaur coffee table books like the Dinosaur Art series or the Dinosaur Facts and Figures set. The ‘raptor’ types in particular look hawk-life with their feathered long arms and long tails. They were still sticking with the mouths-full of REALLY sharp teeth, so no beaks.
        And, yes, they look sick as hell, particularly the man-sized or larger versions.

    2. Deanatay

      Oh yeah. And now, considerably more terrifying. (I will never get over being bitten on the nose by a goose when I was 8. Evil, evil birds.)

      1. Jhon

        If that was a nesting goose, you got off lightly.

  4. Thag Simmons

    Dinosaurs are an exceptionally diverse group of animals that would have made a variety of sounds depending on the species.

    But yes some of them absolutely would have honked

    1. King Daniel

      Yeah, while some dinosaurs were indeed early birds (birds being the only still-living dinosaur clade after all), the likes of Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, or Euoplocephalus could not really be meaningfully said to be “avian” any more than one could use that word to describe – say – crocodiles and tuataras.

      1. Kamino Neko

        Well, I’ve seen some people who extend ‘avian’ to the entirety of avemetatarsalia…but, yeah, it’s usually restricted to a subgroup of the maniraptorans.

        1. King Daniel

          Yeah, IMO folding in even “just” the avemetatarsalians would render the term “avian” so broad as to be effectively useless.

        2. milu

          Wait what? i thought “avian” as in “all non-avian dinosaurs went extinct at the K-Pg boundary” referred to the clade “Aves” which literally just means bird?? some people use it differently? do you have any sources for this?

      2. King Daniel

        TL;DR “dinosaurs were early birds” isn’t the full truth, as while all early birds were dinosaurs, not all dinosaurs were early birds. (Most weren’t, even by the loosest definition!)

        1. Wagstaff

          If I’m not mistaken, current evidence suggests that only the Archaeopteryx was the ancestor of modern birds. All others went extinct; after the meteor strike blocked out the sun and severely reduced the food supply, no creature weighing more than fifty pounds was able to survive.

        2. Owlmirror

          Archaeopteryx was a small dinosaur clearly related to birds, but a cousin-species (like many other cousin-species); off to one side, not directly ancestral.

          These are the lecture notes and phylogenetic tree by an actual dinosaur professor:

          https://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G104/lectures/104eumani.html

        3. Wagstaff

          Thank you for providing such a marvelous resource for further dinosaur related discussion on this site!

          By the way, have you been here before?

        4. milu

          i’ve always thought the PBS Eons series seemed well made (you can tell a science show is legit by the awfulness of their puns) but it’s nice to see an actual dinosaur prof endorse it =) (wait— does your professor have elbow patches??!)

        5. davidbreslin101

          A paleontologist who specialised in the orgins of birds once said that her least favourite question from the public was “So, which one was the first bird?” She said she really struggled to get across that it was a continuous process, so there was never an exact moment when a dinsoaur lineage went from Definitely Not Bird to Definitely Bird.

        6. milu

          “Reality is a continuum” may be the single most obviously useful concept most people never seem willing to accept. Philosophers and scientists keep pushing it, but it never seems to catch on. It’s a bit frustrating.

        7. milu

          yeah, maybe Dina’s dumbing it down here. I guess she’s probably more interested in theropods than in other dinosaurs, at least as far as role-playing them goes, and while saying “theropods are early birds” is still wrong it’s a lot less wrong.

        8. Regalli

          Yeah, I think she has a preference for theropods and, frankly, the cladistic defining line for birds isn’t entirely clear. (Archaeopteryx? Maniraptoria? Coelurasauria? That’s probably too broad but not nearly as Too Broad as it should be.) It’s definitely very simplified, but since birds are weird I can see why. (I’ve seen people semi-jokingly go ‘fuck it. Dinosaurs are birds. This is wrong but we’re going to be at least a little arbitrary in the dividing line no matter what we do.’)

        9. Needfuldoer

          I’m sure some species only woke up in the afternoon. They certainly weren’t early birds.

        10. milu

          “or certain individuals of certain species”, i’m now imagining a dinosaur saying with typical mom-snark as she side-eyes one of her young sluggishly emerging from the family burrow

      3. Rose by Any Other Name

        To be fair on the sound front – reptiles don’t roar either. Alligators make a sort of belching/purring noise that puts me in mind of gurgling pipes. At best, it could be described as a growl – but certainly not a “rarr” style roar. That sound mostly comes from mammals (I can only think of large cats and a few other outliers personally – canines growl and bark, but they don’t roar).

        Before making this comment, I googled “what noises do alligators make” and the video that came up was fascinating – I did my best above to describe what I heard.

        1. milu

          I ran the same search on Duckduckgo and this was the second result: a guy who calls himself The Gator Crusader does a silly bit about teaching alligators poetry, the point is to demonstrate that they produce a range of sounds from hissing and snapping to what he calls bellowing, and that last honestly does sound close enough to “rarr”, except it should be in all caps and have more R’s probably

  5. Shitbird

    Dina remains adorable.

    1. Keulen

      Hopefully Dina never stops being adorable.

      1. Clif

        Dina not being adorable would be like Mike not … uh … being Mike.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          So… you’re saying an inverted three-storey drop would make an impact on her being adorable? Sure, Mike paved the way to new forms of character development, but it seems unlikely to be a hit with fans a second time. Probably it would fall flat.

        2. Clif

          I knew the Internets before you won them all.

        3. Spencer

          In another universe she did end up like Mike.

  6. Suet

    Just… just hompk.

    At least the shirt is darker

    1. Needfuldoer

      Paleontological progress goes HOMPK.

      Maybe the new shirt is the same color the original one was supposed to be, before it faded in the wash?

  7. RassilonTDavros

    …Okay, I was totally wrong about the meaning of the storyline title.

    And I don’t care, because this is amazing. Had no idea Dina was into graphic design. I’m now wondering how many of the shirts we’ve seen her wear over the years were her own designs!

    1. Wagstaff

      What did you think the meaning was?

      1. BBCC

        A lot of people thought it was supposed to sound like vomiting and were worried Ruth would go drinking, because this storyline is her birthday.

        1. Yumi

          My mind, reading this comment and getting ahead of itself: “sound like vomiting and were worried Ruth would be pregnant“….

          Me: Hm, yes…

        2. Yumi

          I hope we don’t have to see Ruth through either of these things, but there would be a lot of potential for Baby Ruth jokes.

        3. Delicious Taffy

          Is that guy dead yet, BTW? I think most people would take that as a candy bar product placement.

        4. Clif

          Babe Ruth died in 1948, the year before I was born. The name Baby Ruth was used by the candy company when they couldn’t get permission to name it as the Babe Ruth bar. Babe sued and lost.

        5. AbacusWizard

          I thought the candy bar was named after some president’s kid?

        6. AbacusWizard

          …or was that just a ruse to fend off the lawyers?

        7. Opus the Poet

          Your supposition about lawyers seems to be correct, as the candy bar was released several years after the president in question left office.

        8. BarerMender

          Forty-niners represent!

        9. Clif

          I’m not sure what the expected appropriate response to that is, but Hello fellow ancient person.

        10. Jhon

          I was born the year Texas City blew up.
          Whippersnappers.

        11. Clif

          Technically, it was the SS Grandcamp that blew up. Texas City was just collateral damage.

          But yeah, I’ll get off your lawn.

        12. King Daniel

          @Opus the Poet: And wasn’t said presidential daughter deceased herself by then, as well?

        13. Rabid Rabbit

          Howie already made that joke (except he wasn’t joking, because American sex education) back during the family visit weekend, so I think we’re safe.

        14. Needfuldoer

          We’d never see her carry to term unless DoA season 2 picks up the pace. We saw just about three months pass in a decade; even accounting for the months without weekend updates, we’re looking at roughly 25 years for nine in-comic months to pass at the old tempo.

          Besides, if anyone has a pregnancy scare I bet it’s going to be Mary. Yeah I know that would retread an arc from the Walkyverse, but it could have already happened off-screen during the skip for all we know.

        15. Sirksome

          Well that’s depressing. Also it would seem like a huge step backwards for Ruth’s character. Like just from a reader’s perspective we’ve seen plenty of drunk Ruth hitting rock bottom, so do we really need to see more?

        16. King Daniel

          As far back as the opening chapter of this “Season 2” (and as recently as the most recent one, yesterday in-universe) Ruth has made allusions to intentions of drinking once she hits 21, which is today.

          Also the Willis is a cruel and ruthless author, damnations be invoked upon his unholy name.

        17. BBCC

          Yeah, she told Booster she wasn’t ready to date sober and then told them to ask her out on her birthday, which is today.

        18. Sirksome

          I understand she’s been making comments about it and there is potential it might happen. It’s just from a story perspective why? We’ve spent a decade following Ruth’s struggle with alcoholism. I know realistically it’s only been a few months for her and the real life struggle with addiction is a long, never ending process, but from a reading standpoint *at least for me* it just feel like treading old ground. Like would you really want to watch Amber fight Sal again, or Joyce go back to being such a sheltered and judgmental fundamentalist? I wouldn’t. If Ruth actually fall off the wagon there should be a good reason for it.

        19. Clif

          Amber vs. Sal for some new twist of issues could be interesting. Joyce may have learned some things that make her a better person, but that doesn’t mean that she’ll automatically be right about everything. I don’t know what direction Willis will take things, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be boring.

        20. Leorale

          I’d be interested if it showed something really surprising or interesting about Ruth’s character, or if it got us further tasty plot. Maybe, despite her integrity, drunken Ruth does something incredibly regrettable.
          For example, an interaction with Jennifer, especially if they tell us why they broke up. (Or worse, she could get drunk and smooch Booster, but I hope not.)

        21. RassilonTDavros

          I thought it was supposed to sound like a bottle being uncorked, but same difference so far as plot predictions are concerned.

  8. Wagstaff

    Believe it or not, this very sound is made by something else in the dumbing of age universe. Do you think you can find it?

    I’ll give you a hint: It’s a non-living thing.

    1. misanthropope

      ive always imagined toedad honking like a goose, and *HE’s* a nonliving thing.

      1. Wagstaff

        No, I mean something that never lived.

        1. Rainhat

          Well, then, Hank never got out much…?

    2. Gandalf007

      Blowjob cat?

      1. Wagstaff

        No. How could that thing make a sound, anyway?

        1. Zach

          Wind, blown across his blowjob lips.

        2. Rycan

          An appropriate avatar for that comment

    3. Delicious Taffy

      It’s Mike, isn’t it.

      1. Wagstaff

        I already said it’s something that NEVER lived. Think pizzas, pens, pillows and manhole covers.

        1. Nono

          Is it The Truck.

        2. Wagstaff

          I have no idea what you’re talking about, but no.

          Time for a more illicit hint.

          One of these things is not like the others:

          Spiral staircase; rhinoceros beetle; Desolation Row; fig tart; rhinoceros beetle; Via Dolerosa; rhinoceros beetle; wish; singularity point; Giotto; angel; hydrangea; rhinoceros beetle; singularity point; secret emperor.

        3. Delicious Taffy

          What in the blue hell is this?

        4. Delicious Taffy

          Wait a fucking minute…. >:^[

        5. Wagstaff

          Oooo! Did you figure it out?

        6. Delicious Taffy

          Only if the answer involves a certain flamboyant vampire and some construction equipment.

        7. King Daniel

          I still don’t get what Count Chocula in a bulldozer has to do with any of this.

        8. Rycan

          And why is “rhinoceros beetle” mentioned four times?

        9. Needfuldoer

          And are they not living things?

        10. King Daniel

          I think you just activated the Winter Soldier there

        11. Wagstaff

          Uh…. wrong universe?

        12. Zach

          A fallen angel that didn’t go to hell but became addicted to crack in the inner city, AKA a ‘Ghetto Angel’, would likely honk like a goose and is also non living, though I now see Giotto is a painter….

          Mike was so unhappy and dispassionate, was he ever alive?

          And the White Winter Soldier is obviously silly. What you’ve activated it is the Manchurian Candidate.
          Who will he kill?
          What have you done?!

        13. Wagstaff

          Note to self for future experiments: a black hole is NOT a trash can.

        14. King Daniel

          A black hole can be a trash can if you think big enough

        15. Clif

          It all depends on your velocity. The sun doesn’t make a good trash can for the earth because we are in a stable orbit around the sun and you have to use a large amount of energy to kill that orbital velocity of the trash in order for it to drop into the sun. Similarly, if you are in the vicinity of a black hole in a stable orbit it is also going to take a huge amount of energy to make the trash drop into the black hole. If you are in the vicinity of a black hole and not in a stable orbit, trash may be the least of your problems.

        16. Demoted Oblivious

          Would it take more or less energy to instead boost the trash into a highly elliptical orbit that would pass inside the surface of the sun? (thus causing friction and orbital decay)

        17. Khyrin

          Mother loving JoJo References…

        18. Delicious Taffy

          I think the manhole covers are the only thing in that list that were never alive, unless we’re about to learn something new about metal.

          Also, Mike was a ghost the entire time anyway.

        19. Clif

          After Mike died the second time in the Walkyverse he came back in the DOAverse as a ghost, projecting not only his own image, but an idealized version of his parents. It also explains his partiality to Amber.

    4. AntJ

      the untitled goose game https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/wish-2/

      1. Wagstaff

        Ding ding ding!

      2. Wagstaff

        Wait, I actually thought it was the BED that made that sound!

        I’m such a silly goose!

        1. Clif

          Are we sure there wasn’t a dinosaur hiding under the bed?

        2. Wagstaff

          I originally thought it was the bed because the sound appeared to come from there, and because it looked like a homologue to “pomf pomf”.

      3. milu

        woooh nicely spotted!
        I now like to imagine Willis was writing that strip and then went off on a train of thought about geese and dinosaurs that ended in this storyline =)

    5. BarerMender

      It was the noise the character made in the game Ruth & Billie were playing at Becky’s party.

    6. FacelessDeviant

      That avatar is very fitting for a riddle/quiz-master!

  9. Proto_Eevee

    Does this mean Dina won’t go “RARR!!” anymore?

    1. Wagstaff

      Could you imagine her trying to make a goose noise to scare people away? Whether scientific accuracy is sacrificed for the sake of pragmatic purposes is entirely up to her discretion.

      1. Proto_Eevee

        I’d run away from any tiny woman screaming “HOMPK!” at me.

        1. Wagstaff

          If you call her tiny, she just might.

    2. milu

      If she can make a good ornery goose impression, that might be more effective than a roar. While the latter tends to evoke cheesy monster movies, in most people the former would arouse terrifying memories of being chased and maybe bitten by geese as a kid. Or even not as a kid. Geese don’t give a fuck.

      1. Zach

        A goose can break a fox’s neck with its wings! Scary birds.
        This shouldn’t have surprised me so much, those wings are strong enough for take off, after all.

  10. rizz

    Dina is so pure.

  11. AntJ

    this is almost as good as when a storyline was named for the embroidery on the plush velociraptor’s butt

  12. Stephen Bierce

    The Early Worm had a DEATH WISH.”–THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS

    *plays George Clinton’s “Mr. Wiggles” on the hacked Muzak*

    1. Edwin I Callahan

      The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

      1. Jhon

        Ok, because the early mouse is now the late mouse.

        1. milu

          wow that’s so shrewd

  13. misanthropope

    african grey parrots (especially immature ones) make a pretty good variety of RAWR-type noises.

    1. Thag Simmons

      Yeah, but if you acknowledge that Birds have an incredibly wide range of vocalizations, and that Dinosaurs being an extremely diverse group of animals would have made different sounds depending on the species, then you can’t go “Scientists say Dino go Honk (lame), and not Growl (cool)”

      And of course framing the advance and refinement of human knowledge as dumb scientists taking awesome things and making them lame gets you more clicks than actually representing the thing, and you gotta get those clicks!

      1. Clif

        Could 9.92 million geese be wrong? (Cira 2020).

      2. milu

        Sounds like an Onion headline:

        Ruining Childhood Fantasies Yet Again: “Dinosaurs Went Hompk, Not Rarr” Paleontologists Keep Say, Aggravatingly

        After insisting that many of our most beloved movie monsters were never terrifying scaly lizards but actually bright downy fuzzballs, scientists carry on their crusade to make everyone hate them by insisting T-Rex “probably clucked or honked” rather than roared, as Spielberg once iconically portrayed them. At time of writing, thousands of incensed protesters are walking towards the paleontology lab of the University of **** where the offending research team have been reported to have barricaded themselves with crates of sediments from their latest dig. In an interview about the possible outcome of the protest earlier today, a local law enforcement official was heard saying, “Look, these people are pissed. And i can’t say I blame them. Our childhoods are basically being flipped off, you know. It’s basically child abuse. We’ll do our job to protect each and every one of our citizens today, but I’m not saying we’ll be able to get to the campus in an especially timely manner. There seems to be a lot of urgent paperwork to fill at the station today”.

        1. JBento

          This sounds less like Onion satire and more like an accurate prediciton of events, if what happened when stick-up-their-ass buffoons were informed of what colours ancient Greek statures actually were is any indication.

        2. Edwin I Callahan

          Classical cultures, when they had the resources, were really garish. If the Greeks and the Romans had had electricity, Athens and Rome would have looked like Los Vegas. Except with less taste.

        3. JBento

          If the Classicals had ever heard of neon, they’d have all gone blind.

        4. Clif

          It is well known that color wasn’t invented until the 1930s. For proof just look at photographs before that time.

        5. milu

          So they were like South Indian Hindu temples maybe?

        6. JBento

          Brighter yellows, plus garish red and bright dark blue.

  14. BBCC

    Queen move, Dina, Queen move.

  15. Joe Moose

    I imagine a t-shirt with the line art of a T-Rex with HOMPK!! text bubble.

    Make it happen, Mr Willis! Make it happen!

    1. milu

      you did notice the Teepublic link in the pink box below the comic?

      (it’s just a replica of Dina’s shirt though, there’s no t-rex line art)

  16. ian livs

    Press Y to hompk

  17. Tan

    Dumbing of Age Book 11: Like an Angry Goose

  18. Tawnee

    This is the most important DoA strip in the history of time. Don’t @ me.

    1. Clif

      Of course it is. It’s the first time that we’ve seen Asma from the back.

      1. Clif

        Until now, we had no actual evidence she was visible from that direction.

        1. milu

          she had our back to us like 5 strips ago, although she did twist her neck to ogle Walky as he passed by her desk

        2. Clif

          Darn. I waited 11 hours to see if anyone would contradict the first post before making the second.

  19. Kamino Neko

    It’s actually not clear just how widespread the necessary anatomy to make these kinds of sounds are outside of aves.

    It’s quite possible that most non-avian dinosaurs couldn’t vocalize beyond hissing, like most other reptiles or a few types of bird which have lost the syringes. Those that did have the anatomy probably made a similar range to avians… T. rex wouldn’t have gone ‘tweet’, but Microraptor might have. I could see Velociraptor honking…

    1. sultryglebe

      I’m not saying there is any science for it, but it would be great if some large herbivorous dinosaurs mooed.

      1. Clif

        And the carnivores that preyed on them were real mooed killers.

        1. milu

          noooo i laughed way too loudly at this i will never be cool

  20. Bicycle Bill

    Dina (and Willis) are just now coming around to what Johnny Hart knew over 40 years ago.  Dinosaurs say “GRONK!!”.

    1. Needfuldoer

      No, that’s what GOATs say.

      At least after they move to Florida.

      1. Clif

        Old goats never die, they just move to Florida?

        If only Mike had been a goat. He could have been gronking today.

  21. Bagge

    “It’s a beautiful morning in the village and you are a pedantic goose”

    1. Clif

      I am not a number; I am a free goose.

  22. Bogeywoman

    HOMPK! It means I love you in dinosaur x3

    1. Clif

      Which always brings up the important scientific question of how the dinosaurs did it. ?

      1. King Daniel

        This Spanish display by the Jurassic Museum of Asturias might be rather enlightening.

        1. Clif

          Nice. Thank you for the reference.

        2. milu

          omggg that is excellent!!!

    2. Harmony

      It also means, “You taste good” in Dinosaur.

      … the fact both sound the same contributed to their extinction.

  23. nothri

    Hmmmm…

    If dinosaurs were indeed early birds…

    WHAT DID THEY DO WITH ALL THEIR WORMS?

    1. King Daniel

      They got them, obviously.

      1. Clif

        No-one in the history of worms ever got worms like the dinosaur philosophers did. The dinosaurs had a long and varied history with worms , originally mining for worms living in the wilds. Later, as dinosaur civilization advanced, they ran vast worms farms, using selective breeding to obtain decorative and extraordinary useful varieties of worms that are now lost to the geological record due to being composed of soft tissue. In the days just before the asteroid, the farms gave way to ever larger and more sophisticated worm factories, which as fortune would have it, where concentrated together in the impact area. Today’s worms are all the pitiful descendants of a few factory rejects that were sent to other areas for study. We will never know the full glory that was worms.

        1. milu

          Upon meeting in the early morning, a worm and a bird will sometimes exchange a wistful half-smile in acknowledgment of their shared past glory.

          “You’re the early bird, eh?” the worm might say, disguising their terror with bravado. Distant echoes of Ennio Morricone seem to float in the dewy mist.

          “Early in the morning, late in the aeon”, the bird might reply after a long, soft pause, then, almost regretfully, they get the worm.

        2. King Daniel

          This is poetry right here.

    2. milu

      SO MANY WORMS

      1. Clif

        SO LITTLE TIME

      2. Jhon

        In the days just before the asteroid…
        Is how the novel opens. The one I’m writing in my head. A tale of reckless ambition, jealousy, and doomed love.

        1. Clif

          Don’t let the story run away on you as you write it. Dinosaur tales have minds of their own.

          Also, dibs on a percentage of the royalties Have your imaginary people talk to my imaginary people.

  24. AbacusWizard

    HOMPK

  25. Robert

    I remember visiting the local bird sanctuary/urban lake with my older son years ago. He was a little skittish around wild creatures, and would ask me if the birds bit.

    Robins, no. Pigeons, no. Seagulls, no. Then we met the geese.

    ‘These birds *will* bite, son.’

    1. Daibhid C

      You clearly have different seagulls to the ones we have in Inverness. Or maybe you just didn’t have food on you.

      Seriously, walk along the riverbank with a bag of chips and it’s like you’re Tippi Hendren.

    2. Needfuldoer

      Seagulls poke you in the coconut. Not fun!

  26. Wagstaff

    Funny, I had a dream JUST LAST NIGHT that I was getting chased by a dinosaur.

  27. Amos Batista

    Only people who got chased by these little beasts could agree with Dina about geese.

    They got teeth. In the beaks.

    1. Eldritchy

      All domesticated birds are assholes! Some more than the others…

    2. Wagstaff

      Well this one wasn’t tiny. It did have a beak though, lined with teeth. It was ostrich-sized, scaley, blood-red in color, and was fast enough to chase me up the fence!

    3. davidbreslin101

      I’ve lived in places with a lot of wild geese most of my life. Only once had one physically attack me. It wasn’t very good at it. I was afraid it would peck me but instead it just kept slamming its body into my legs. Another time, a little barnacle geese flew up in my face like it was going for my eyes, but it was bluffing- I was too startled to even move, and it didn’t make contact. Some geese are chill, but others will try to menace me every time I walk past.

      I have been bitten by a duck, and can confirm they have freaky little raspy “teeth” in the roof of their mouths.

  28. Ray Radlein

    It’s a lovely morning in the Jurassic, and you are a horrible ornitholestes

    1. Eldritchy

      Honk!

  29. Rabisch

    This is really cute. Dina looks so happy for her new and most accurate shirt ♡.

  30. Simberto

    To anyone who thinks that birds are not scary, i bring this paper:

    Title: Skull morphology of giant terror birds
    Subtitle: These monstrous birds were probably more agile and less portly than previously thought.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/443929a

    I think this also proves beyond a doubt that paleontologists definitively have the coolest titles for their articles.

    1. JBento

      Put someone in close-quarters with a cassowary for 5 minutes and people will learn how scary birds are right damn quick. Well, not the one you put in the enclosure, because they’re likely disemboweled, but, y’know, the spectators.

      1. milu

        Cassowary boom (i.e. call): definitely doesn’t not a “hompk”

        1. milu

          (oh my god when will i start checking for typos before posting)

        2. JBento

          Literally nothing should be allowed to make that sound, especially something that lives in forests so thick you can’t see it.

    2. Needfuldoer

      Anyone who thinks birds aren’t scary has never seen an ostrich in person.

      Australia went to war against emus, and the emus won.

  31. Eldritchy

    That’s actually friggin adorable… and yeah goose remember that they were dinosaurs and are very salty about not being them anymore.

  32. FacelessDeviant

    What if some dinosaur were more like a parrot and learned how to growl from a mammal?

    1. JBento

      Dinosaur-age mammals were basically rats, so at best it’d have learnt to squeak.

  33. Nenja

    I love Dina so much.

  34. Alan in DC

    HOMPK!

    Don Martin (MAD Magazine) would be proud.

    1. Dara

      HOMPK!

  35. DarkoNeko

    HONKJ

  36. Fist_of_Life

    That’s a well worn shirt. Look at the difference in color between the two.

  37. Hazel

    Ah! Dina is so cute!

  38. Scoops!

    I like she asks “are you familiar with …” while pointing at the shirt in question, that she is wearing right now.

  39. Wakeangel2001

    I wonder if any dinosaurs would have evolved a mimicry ability like parrots are famous for, then you could stay a dinosaur could sound like whatever it wants. Also I think “SKREE” would be a better sound effect, like that sound a hawk makes when it wants to make itself known.

  40. foducool

    ah yes, the murder duck

  41. Common sense

    “our best current guess” ….there is sooo much wrong with that.you dont always have to follow the “newest trend” Dina.
    Just Growl ok? its definitly better then an angry goose sound.

    1. milu

      psssh stupid scientists, always wanting to take the latest data into account, always trying to keep up with the lastest research in their field, like ridiculous teenagers
      /s

      1. davidbreslin101

        “Oooh, it’s not phlogiston any more, they call it /oxygen/. Bloody hipsters.”

        1. milu

          What, so suddenly everyone agrees with that Copernican nonsense? Good old traditional geocentrism not good enough for you? I guess nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition then eh?

  42. Spencer

    I got a pair of glasses today so now I am waiting patiently for my well chinned hunk who tries to come off as flippant and uncaring but secretly thinks the world of me.

  43. Jhon

    Um, he saved you when you were tied to a railroad track?

  44. Jimmy

    Watch out for the cobra chickens

  45. SadnessWithASmile

    Honestly, I’d wear that shirt. And if anyone asked, I’d explain that it’s a dinosaur thing, because they probably sounded like large angry geese. And if anyone then pointed out that I’m technically wearing an angry goose noise, I’d explain that this is the opposite of a problem.

  46. Heather

    Does Asma appearing again so soon as a tag mean a possible increase to minor character status rather than barely exists for years at a time status?

    Because I’m interested, just saying.

  47. davidbreslin101

    A few years back, I wrote a silly song about a sauropod where I had it honk like a titanic goose. Shortly after, I read that that really is the sound paleantologists think they made! Not sure about other dinosaurs- there’s a massive variety of head, jaw, neck and crest types, so you’d think they’d have a massive variety of vocal sounds too.

    1. milu

      If scientific journals had comment sections you’d be like “CALLED IT”

  48. Hinoron

    Bear roars have been popular source sounds for big monsters and dinosaurs for many Hollywood producer for many a decade.

    Heck, I remember my childhood cartoons Saturday morning making that sound. I’d be a lot older before I learned it was a bear.

    “Heeeeeey! This bear sounds a lot like a T-Rex! (…wait a minute…)”

  49. Kryss LaBryn

    That’s the sound my dog makes lol

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