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We have an explanation for all 3194 xkcd comics, and only 60 (1.9%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!
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| Sauropods |
 Title text: Vertebrae Georg |
Explanation
This comic attempts to correct people on the skeletal structure of sauropod dinosaurs, claiming that most individuals actually had short necks and tails, and the "queen" of the colony had an enormous number of vertebrae, possibly resembling a snake with legs. The idea is that paleontologists misconstructed the skeletons, averaging the vertebrae out between all specimens, and not giving most of them to the queen.
In reality, most of the animal species that have colonies with queens are insects, particularly termites, ants, bees, and wasps. No sauropods or other reptiles are known to do so.
The title-text references Spiders Georg, an internet meme character who eats over 10,000 spiders a day, skewing the average, creating the factoid that "the average person swallows 3 spiders a year."
Transcript
- [Top panel: A sauropod with a normal long neck and tail, crossed out with a large red X.]
- [Bottom panel: Two sauropods with very short necks and tails, with a green check mark drawn in between and an eel-like supposed "sauropod queen" situated above them, who is predominantly composed of sauropod necks winding off both sides of the panel, with a single head and tip of the tail visible. The sauropod queen and the sauropod on the left look at each other.]
- [Caption below the comic:]
- Thanks to modern paleontological reconstructions, we now know that most sauropods had short necks, and all those extra vertebrae belonged to the sauropod colony's queen.
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