Thesaurus

"Thesaurus! The scariest, most terrifying, frightening, fearsome beast ever to walk the earth!"

~ Oscar Wilde on Thesaurus

Thesaurus, Greek for "the lizard," was a biblivorous (book-eating) therapod dinosaur which lived during the Lower Uncyclopedian era, the last stage of the Cretinous period, 66–65 million years ago. It was first discovered in Oxford by Winston Churchill in 1910.

Characteristics

Up to 15 cm in length and 5–10 grams in weight, Thesaurus was one of the largest biblivorous dinosaurs of all time. Compared to other biblivorous dinosaurs, the teeth of Thesaurus were heavily serrated, massive and oval in cross-section. Heavy wear, and the bite marks found on pages of book fossils, indicate that these teeth could tear into solid hardbacks. The teeth are often found worn or broken at the tips from heavy use, but unlike those of mammals, they were continually grown and shed throughout the life of the bibliovore.

While Thesaurus appears to have had a sizable brain, with temporal lobes heavily modified for recording word meaning, syntax and etymology, it was probably not particularly intelligent by mammalian standards.

Predator, Scavenger or Both?

The discussion about the feeding patterns of Thesaurus and other large biblivorous dinosaurs remains active. Most paleontologists have portrayed them as predators, frequently shoplifting from bookstores, newsagents and libraries while some see them as scavengers, subsisting on discarded newspapers and food wrappers.

See Also

• Thesaurus Rex
• The Uncyclopedia articles for dictionary, glossary, lexicon, terminology, vocabulary, word stock, wordbook, and wordlist.

This article was originally sporked from Wikipedia.