Any Reptile--What would YOU choose?

I've been addicted to snakes since I was 4 and my wife just bought me 6 new morphs for christmas and my birthday. So aside from that I'd have to say a clutch of Black Throat Monitors so I could raise them up and let them roam my yard as my first line of defense against Hoodlums

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

The dinosaurs are more birds than they are reptiles (and velociraptor had feathers), so you could just keep a Cassowary...probably similar in temperament, if not diet. A bit bigger than velociraptor, though (it only stood 3 feet, unlike the ones in Jurrassic Park).

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:P Actually, Velociraptors aren't dinosaurs. They are just winged reptiles. Still awesome, but not dinosaurs.
And it's only the Theropods that evolved into birds. The rest weren't so lucky.


If I could have anything, it would be an Anaconda. :)

ill have to X3 that on the raptor lol but also a komodo dragon!!! and many other types of monitors... ha :D

For a living animal I would like a leusistic burmese python. Those are awesome!

Does it have to actually be real? Cause if not, Ive always wanted a dragon! Lol, like a giant fire breathing flying dragon with giant spikes and horns on the head, cause to me, the only perfect world would be a world with dragons haha.

if it had to be real, I would want one of those ausralian horned lizards, I cant remember what theyre called exactly, but yeah one of those. I cant remember how it works, but supposedly, they can move water that lands anywhere on thier bodies to theyre mouth where they lick it off theyre face by using muscle contractions to move the water through special channels around theyre scales, which is just freakin awesome lol, im gonna go look some stuff up them

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Originally Posted by Xotik

:P Actually, Velociraptors aren't dinosaurs. They are just winged reptiles. Still awesome, but not dinosaurs.
And it's only the Theropods that evolved into birds. The rest weren't so lucky.


If I could have anything, it would be an Anaconda. :)

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Hmm...Velociraptor is a theropod dinosaur. I think you're confusing them with pterosaurs, which weren't really reptiles, either. (Anything covered in downy fuzz that is warm-blooded simply doesn't fit the definition of a reptile, regardless of its skeletal structure. They really need to go back over the taxonomy of the entire tree at this point. We don't call mammals 'synapsid reptiles', after all, even though they evolved from them).

Velociraptor was warm-blooded and had feathers.
For that matter, there's reason to believe that even baby T-Rexes were covered in downy feathers. Chances are VERY high that feathers evolved extremely early, because endothermy produces a real need for insulation.

Some of the largest dinosaurs didn't have feathers as adults (we have skin imprints), but then, rhinos and elephants don't have much hair, so it's understandable. A large body mass makes losing heat a priority over retaining it.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2010...8291283989539/

http://www.geeksugar.com/Dinosaur-Fe...Amber-19132800

It only makes sense--dinosaurs lived pretty much everywhere, including the rainforests of Antarctica, which got pretty cold in the winter. A small warm-blooded animal, or one that lives in regions that get cold, needs to be able to conserve its body heat, which means it needs to have insulation. There are only really 4 types of insulation that animals have evolved--fur/hair (synapsids/mammals), pycnofibers (what pterosaurs had--they were diapsids), feathers (diapsids/dinosaurs/birds), and a layer of thick fat (blubber).

Anyone else as nerdy as me about dinosaurs will get a kick over this, if they haven't seen it before:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ers-science/o/

Reptiles don't require insulation, because they are ectothermic. Insulation would be detrimental--they need to be able to absorb and release heat quickly when necessary.

I believe that the 'velociraptors' in Jurassic Park were scaled up in size to make them scarier, but before the film was even released, a huge raptor dinosaur was discovered--not deinonychus, but Utahraptor, a new one that was even larger (about twice the size of deinonychus). The actual velociraptor was little larger than a turkey.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...omie_scale.png
On the other hand, Utahraptor may simply be a bit too big.
There are plenty of other 'raptors' left to be discovered, and a variety of in-between sizes as well. :)

I still maintain that keeping a raptor dinosaur would be similar to keeping a cassowary (apart from diet).
http://www.odditycentral.com/wp-cont...8/04/bird2.jpg

I guess mine i could actually get... Waxy Monkey Tree Frog, I feel like i could look at one of these and it would answer all my questions in life.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3501/...a03ce01d7a.jpg

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Originally Posted by cmack91

Does it have to actually be real? Cause if not, Ive always wanted a dragon! Lol, like a giant fire breathing flying dragon with giant spikes and horns on the head, cause to me, the only perfect world would be a world with dragons haha.

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Heck yes! :D


I'd probably say Eastern indigo though... because Eastern indigos are flipping amazing.

Apart from what I already have, I would love a green tree python. They are hands down my favorite herp of all time. Something about their simplicit beauty just amazes me. I will keep and breed high quality GTPs one of these of these days...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomslang 'nuff said.