Mamenchisaurus: I know I shouldn’t, but I still find myself going through the picture books, looking at all the brachiosauruses and apatosauruses and brontosauruses—and knowing that I’ll never be in there. It’s hard to take. I mean, come on, my neck is huge. I’m basically all neck. When kids draw a diplodocus, they always go way too big on the neck, so nine times out of ten, what they end up with could be on my driver’s license. But when The Land Before Time was casting a “long-neck,” where was my phone call? It just makes me feel invisible, you know?
Utahraptor: I try to practice gratitude. When there’s an A-to-Z of dinosaurs needing to be done—for a song, maybe, or a bedspread—I’m pretty much nailed on for that. So people see me, sure… but I don’t feel seen. They clock the name and think they have me all figured out, but do they know the first thing about me? Hell no. For starters, I’m a Methodist.
Stegoceras: I’ve been saying yes to more things lately, just to get myself out there again. But wherever I show up, it’s always, “Oh, sorry, we thought you were the other guy.”
Eustreptospondylus: I found out that I’d made it into a dinosaur fact book once. That was probably the happiest moment of my life up to that point. I told my whole family about it, and we were first in line at the bookstore on publication day. Then I saw that they’d done the thing where all the syllables of my name had been spelled out phonetically. And just for me—not for the stegosaurus, or the triceratops, or even the ankylosaurus. It was humiliating. Anyway, thanks for letting me share.
Saurolophus: Every time it’s the same. Someone needs a bipedal herbivore with a crest on its head, and I’m right here, but the gig goes to Parasaurolophus. Yeah, the guy whose name literally means “like a saurolophus.” Take the last Jurassic World movie; a whole freaking herd of those rip-off merchants, right in the opening scene. Anyone here know a good lawyer?
Euoplocephalus: I swear to god, if I hear one more dick joke.