DinoDiet

Principal Investigator: Dr. Geller¹

Project Description

This project¹ aims to analyse the dietary habits of dinosaurs during the late Cretaceous period. We will be focusing on the differences between herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs.

NOTE The project will include data collection, analysis, and visualisation of the findings.

A simple plan for progressing through the technical stages of the project is shown below:

flowchart LR
  Collection --> Analysis --> Visualisation
                 Analysis --> Conclusion

Data Collection

We will be gathering data from various sources, including fossil records, scientific literature, and online databases. We've listed some key sources below, check them out!

Data Analysis

The data will be analysed using statistical methods to identify patterns and trends in the dietary habits of dinosaurs. We will be comparing the diets of herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs to understand their food preferences and ecological roles.

We will be using programming for our data analysis. Here is a sample of how we will load the data in different languages.

R

library(tidyverse) # Load the necessary libs

dino_data <- read_csv("dino_data.csv") # Read the data

Python

import pandas as pd  # Load the necessary libs

dino_data = pd.read_csv("dino_data.csv")  # Read the data

Data Visualisation

We will create graphs and charts to visualise the findings from our analysis. This will help us better understand the relationships between different dinosaur species and their diets. For instance, we will include visualisations such as pie charts for proportions of herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs, and bar graphs for the comparison of average body sizes.

WARNING Dinosaur images may be frightening.

An example of a dinosaur image we will use for reference in our visualisations can be found below:

Public Domain Dinosaur Image

Conclusion

The goal of this project is to gain a deeper understanding of the dietary habits of dinosaurs during the late Cretaceous period. The findings from this research could provide insights into the evolution and ecology of these fascinating creatures and potentially reveal new information about their extinction event.

Further Info

For more information about dinosaurs and their diet, visit the American Museum of Natural History's website at https://www.amnh.org/

Contributor Reference

Hunger Factor

The Hunger Factor (HF) is an important metric in our work. We calculate it with the following equation:

HF = √(Food Eaten²)

DinoSoft Bugs

When calculating large HF scores for dinosaurs, the DinoSoft software may crash. Please reboot your machine with Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

Read the DinoSoft Docs!

Dino Diets :t-rex:

For reference, here is a summary of the diets and primary food sources of some well-known dinosaur species:

Dinosaur Species	Diet	Primary Food Sources
Triceratops	Herbivore	Ferns, cycads, and horsetails
Tyrannosaurus	Carnivore	Triceratops, Edmontosaurus
Stegosaurus	Herbivore	Ferns, mosses, and cycads
Velociraptor	Carnivore	Small herbivorous dinosaurs
Brachiosaurus	Herbivore	High tree foliage, such as conifers
Spinosaurus	Carnivore	Fish, small to medium-sized dinosaurs
Oviraptor	Omnivore	Eggs, plants, small animals

More widely, we estimate the following distribution of dinosaur diets:

pie title Dino Diet Distribution
    "Herbivore" : 65
    "Carnivore" : 25
    "Omnivore" : 10

Roadmap

To track the progress of the project, we will be using this roadmap:

This is a fictional research project undertaken by a fictional principal investigator. For educational purposes only. ↩↩