What Does Your Favorite Dinosaur Say About You?

Dinosaur cartoon

Almost everyone has a favorite dinosaur, whether it's an All-World all-star like Tyrannosaurus Rex or a third-string dark horse like Iguanodon. But did you know that what you choose as your favorite dinosaur has a lot to say about your personality? Check out these 10 popular dinosaurs, along with their implications for your psychological well-being and everyday behavior.

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Tyrannosaurus Rex
Wikimedia Commons

No surprises here: If your favorite dinosaur is Tyrannosaurus Rex, that means you're a rough, tough go-getter who doesn't take "no" for an answer, from people or from other animals.

Underlings at work do as you say, no questions asked, and other kids on the playground offer up their lunch money without your even having to ask for it. It also means you like to tear into rotting hadrosaur carcasses and let their fleshy fragments fester between your enormous canines. 

Stegosaurus

stegosaurus
Wikimedia Commons

Stegosaurus fans tend to be prickly and ill at ease when thrust into unfamiliar social situations, but quickly warm up in welcoming company and are usually good for an incisive anecdote or two.

They like strongly patterned clothing​ and are extremely defensive of friends and family, to the point where they're not afraid to butt-check their adversaries out of open windows. They also have unusually tiny, walnut-sized brains and are often mistaken for living-room furniture. 

Apatosaurus

Apatosaurus
Nobu Tamura

Admirers of Apatosaurus, the dinosaur formerly known as Brontosaurus, are extremely mysterious and tend to use aliases even in situations where no secrecy is required (say, trying on pants or ordering breakfast at a local diner.)

They have an intense passion for bonsai trees, organic gardening and huge outdoor picnics where they can cook goulash and pilaf for hundreds of friends and relatives. Their unusually long necks make it difficult for them to fit into small and mid-size sedans. 

Velociraptor

velociraptor
Emily Willoughby

The average Velociraptor nut is like that short kid in high school who overcompensated for his height by being comically aggressive. Expressions like "Who are you calling chicken?" and "Come over here and say that, tough guy!" can often be heard in the vicinity of Velociraptor fans, usually in crowded sports bars.

When they're not out strutting their stuff, Velociraptor enthusiasts can be found scuttling beneath recently abandoned dining-room tables, looking for discarded scraps of food. 

Dimetrodon

dimetrodon
Wikimedia Commons

Dimetrodon isn't technically a dinosaur, which means that fans of this late Permian reptile may not necessarily be what they seem, either. That stay-at-home mom who collects stuffed Dimetrodon dolls is probably a deep-cover CIA operative who can kill you five times before you hit the ground, while a kid who eats, breathes and sleeps Dimetrodon may actually be a Golden Retriever in disguise.

For reasons that should be obvious, Dimetrodon fans are unusually fond of ​wind sailing and extra-large umbrellas.

Spinosaurus

spinosaurus
Wikimedia Commons

If you're a fan of Spinosaurus, that's probably because you were picked on by T. Rex enthusiasts when you were a kid and needed to hero-worship something bigger, stronger and more ferocious.

Ironically, most Spinosaurus lovers tend to be shy, unassuming types, and are often employed as accountants, dental assistants, and those guys in the backs of museums who pick lint off bones with toothbrushes. They like to spend their free time camping alongside rapids and biting the heads off fish. 

Triceratops

triceratops
Karen Carr

Any Triceratops fan is someone who owns lots and lots of hats—not just your run-of-the-mill bowlers, fedoras, and knitted wool caps, but kepies, porkpies, and comical little fez-like beanies. Oh, and scarves, too—lots and lots of silk and satin and cotton scarves, in a wide variety of colors and patterns, paisley not excluded.

Beyond that, Triceratops lovers can often be seen standing around motel ballrooms in motionless herds, watching daytime talk shows on widescreen TVs. 

Ankylosaurus

ankylosaurus
Wikimedia Commons

Remember those Venn diagrams you learned about in seventh-grade math? Well, if you had three circles labeled "World of Warcraft Addicts," "Battle of Gettysburg Reenactors" and "Members of the Gimli Fan Club," the shaded area in the middle would represent everyone who claims Ankylosaurus as their favorite dinosaur.

Ankylosaurus nuts are famous for wearing historically authentic medieval armor in public, with a hole drilled in the lower back so they can poke through their clubbed tails.

Archaeopteryx

archaeopteryx
Nobu Tamura

You might naively assume that Archaeopteryx aficionados would be unusually fond of feathers. Well, nothing could be further from the truth; these folks are so desperate to establish their dinosaur bona fides that they even eschew down pillows in favor of unsanded slate.

When they're not raving on and on about how Archaeopteryx was really a dinosaur and not a bird, fans of this tiny reptile can be seen tightly clutching onto the high branches of trees and brooding their speckled eggs.

Iguanodon

iguanodon
Flickr

Iguanodon fanciers are the Walter Mittys of the dinosaur-enthusiast world. They'd much rather love a cooler dinosaur, like Spinosaurus or Triceratops, but their innate modesty (and fear of calling attention to themselves) causes them to keep a much lower profile and not make waves.

The average Iguanodon fan can often be seen watching classic episodes of Wild Kingdom, cheering for the wildebeest whenever it manages to escape the clutches of a pursuing lion.

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Strauss, Bob. "What Does Your Favorite Dinosaur Say About You?" ThoughtCo, Aug. 25, 2020, thoughtco.com/what-favorite-dinosaur-says-about-you-1092466. Strauss, Bob. (2020, August 25). What Does Your Favorite Dinosaur Say About You? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-favorite-dinosaur-says-about-you-1092466 Strauss, Bob. "What Does Your Favorite Dinosaur Say About You?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-favorite-dinosaur-says-about-you-1092466 (accessed March 28, 2024).