Guidelines for dinosaur restorations[edit]

If a dinosaur restoration is to be used in an article, the minimum requirements for anatomical accuracy are as follows. Read the guide before putting an image up for review. Please expand on this list as new information comes along, and cite published papers on the matters, if such exist.

General guidelines for dinosaurs

Most dinosaurs held their necks in an s-shaped curve, and theropod dinosaurs would probably not have been able to stretch the neck out of this pose.^[1]
When restoring the eye of a dinosaur, always make sure to make the cornea fits within the inner diameter of the sclerotic ring, if such is not present in the skeletal restoration used as reference, use one of a related genus for reference instead.[1]
- As an addendum, when you restore the eye of a non-avian dinosaur, use birds and crocodylians as guidelines. As such, restoring dinosaurs with pupils facing away from where the head is positioned is most likely inaccurate; although some birds (like the great cormorant) can move their eyes independently of the head, this is not the norm for birds and as such is unlikely to have been a norm in other dinosaurs.
The nostril should always be placed at the front end of the bony naris.[2]
Beaks, horns, spikes and claws should be restored longer than they appear from the bones, as these were covered and extended by keratin.
The colours are not known for most dinosaurs, but in general, large modern animals usually have drab colours, whereas small animals can have more vivid colours. Also consider colours that would be good for camouflage.
Dinosaurs that are known to have lived within different time periods and geographic ranges should not be restored as if living together. Likewise, plants and other environmental features present in the restoration should match fossil evidence. For example, dinosaurs from the Triassic or Jurassic should not be depicted walking on grass, which did not exist at that time.
Dinosaurs should not be depicted with external genitals, but with crocodile and birdlike cloaca.
Dinosaurs should be shown with fleshy pads underneath their feet and toes, and on their hands and fingers, these should match the pattern seen on tracks known to belong to related animals.[3]
No dinosaurs could cross the radius and ulna arm bones, making their ability to rotate their hands very limited/impossible.[4]
Be sure that quadrupedal dinosaurs are shown with their legs in the right order.[5]
Most dinosaurs probably retained a simplified and immobile tongue as in most archosaurs, with possible exceptions being birds and derived quadrupedal herbivorous dinosaurs like Hadrosauroids and Ankylosaurids.[6]

Guidelines for theropods

No theropod should be restored with more than three inner claws on their hands, regardless of finger count. Fourth and fifth fingers should always remain clawless.
They should not have pronated "bunny-style" hands.[7]
They should not be reconstructed with overly flexed tails, and dromaeosaurs had very stiff tails, supported by entwined bony processes.[8]
Coelurosaurian theropods should be depicted with protofeathers if more primitive than oviraptorosaurs, and contour feathers if as derived or more than them. Taxa outside coelurosauria can also be shown with protofeathers.
The primary feathers of maniraptoran wings should grow from the second finger, not from the arm, as is often shown.
In deinonychosaurs, it is possible to have leg "wings", so keep this in mind when restoring one.
Protofeathers should not be coloured blue, green or purple.[9]

Guidelines for sauropodomorphs

If nothing indicates otherwise, prosauropods should be depicted as bipedal, with non-pronated hands. The hind legs should be depicted as heavy enough to support the weight of the animal.[10]
Like theropods, prosauropods had no more than three claws, all on the inner three fingers.
Sauropods should not be restored with more than one inner claw on their front legs. Titanosaurs had no fingers at all.
Sauropods should not be reconstructed as chewing food, as their dentition is unlike those of hadrosaurs and ceratopsids (which, with their batteries of teeth and robust jaw musculature, probably could chew in a vertical, scissor-like motion). Gastroliths also indicate that sauropods did not chew their food manually, but ground it in the stomach with stones.

Guidelines for thyreophorans

Ankylosaurs should be restored with cheeks.
The digits of their hands were arranged in a columnar, sauropod-like fashion.[11]
The tail spikes of stegosaurs were directed sideways and almost horizontally, not upright.

Guidelines for ornithopods

The three central fingers of iguanodonts and hadrosaurs should be encased in a single hooflike sheath.
Hadrosaurs had very inflexible tails, stiffened by bony tendons, so the tails could only be moved slightly to the sides, but not up and down.
Skin impressions as well as "mummies" have been found of hadrosaurs; use these as reference when restoring the skin of hadrosaurs and related ornithopods.
Ornithopods could not pronate their hands, but the palms of hadrosaurs faced almost backwards..[12]

Guidelines for ceratopsians

Ceratopsians may be restored with bristles, as the primitive ceratopsian Psittacosaurus has been shown to have such structures.
They have five fingers on their hands. Only the inner three should be shown with claws.[13]
Ceratopsians could not pronate their hands.[14]

Most wanted illustrations[edit]

Need life restoraton: Mymoorapelta, Nebulasaurus, Dinheirosaurus, Chuanjiesaurus, Struthiosaurus, Talenkauen, Mendozasaurus, Magyarosaurus, Savannasaurus, Protoavis, Powellvenator, Xunmenglong
Need size diagrams: Sinocalliopteryx
The Unidentified Dinosauria category on Commons is filled with potentially useful images that need to be identified.

To do list for User:ArthurWeasley[edit]

Agustinia Mussaurus Abelisaurus

Majungasaurus - need a couple more pictures for this article, maybe a headshot and a full-body image? Anything would be great! [15][16]
Allosaurus: a head shot restoration would be nice (maybe an "A. atrox" versus A. fragilis comparison).
If anyone feels up to it, a picture of Acro's skull as I think it is pretty cool looking (PDF here).