Dinosaurs are pretty cool, which is why they are frequently seen in fiction. However, creators do not always prioritize historical or scientific accuracy when dealing with these prehistoric creatures in works. As such, dinosaurs often appear in the wrong time period, along with humans (unless appropriate), possess special abilities that they otherwise would never have had, or are treated as pets or friendly characters. They may also be presented with anatomic inaccuracies (such as being the wrong size, having the wrong number or shape of toes, teeth, horns or dorsal fins, having inaccurate proportions, etc.)
In Real Life many of the most commonly-recognized dinosaurs lived in different habitats, continents or time periods.note Some prehistoric creatures, like pterosaurs and plesiosaurs, are technically not even considered dinosaurs. Fortunately, some educational programs attempt to avoid these pitfalls.
A Sub-Trope of Artistic License – Biology, and a Super-Trope to Aquatic Hadrosaurs, Aquatic Sauropods, Snowy Sabertooths, and Toxic Dinosaur. See also Dinosaurs Are Dragons, Slurpasaur, Dumb Dinos, Goofy Feathered Dinosaur, Raptor Attack, Terror-dactyl, Headbutting Pachy, Living Dinosaurs and Hollywood Prehistory. For mistakes pertaining to dinosaurs today, see Artistic License – Ornithology.
Compare Dinosaurs, Stock Dinosaurs (True Dinosaurs), Stock Dinosaurs (Non-Dinosaurs), and Prehistoric Life.
For a list of common inaccuracies of prehistoric creatures in the media, check out the trope's Analysis page.
An extreme and unusually common form of this is when people conflate archaeology with palaeontology.
