When one reads about Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus, one is not dealing with species, like lions or African elephants. Instead, these are genera, a g… - Gregory S. Paul

Dinosaur remains have been found by humans for millennia and probably helped form the basis for belief in mythical beasts including dragons.

This is the theropod. Indeed, excepting perhaps Brontosaurus, this is the public's favourite dinosaur, having fought King Kong for the forced favor of Fay Wray and smashed Tokyo (with inferior special effects) in the guise of Godzilla.

Dinosaurs seem strange, but that is just because we are mammals biased toward assuming the modern fauna is familiar and normal, and past forms are exotic and alien. Consider that elephants are bizarre creatures with their combination of big brains, massive limbs, oversized ears, teeth turned into tusks, and noses elongated into hose-like trunks. Nor were dinosaurs part of an evolutionary progression that was necessary to set the stage for mammals culminating into humans. What dinosaurs do show is a parallel world, one in which mammals were permanently subsidiary, whereas the dinosaurs show what largely diurnal land animals that evolved straight from similarly day-loving ancestors should actually look like. Modern mammals are much more peculiar, having evolved from nocturnal beasts that came into their own only after the entire elimination of nonavian dinosaurs. While dinosaurs dominated the land, small nocturnal mammals were just as abundant and diverse as they are in our modern world. If not for the accident of the later even, dinosaurs would probably still be the global norm.