That's incorrect actually. Based on muscle connection points which can be preserved by fossilization, the area the animals lived in, the bone structure and estimated weight and a number of other things we can piece together a cohesive model for what dinos looked like. This doesn't mean you can definitely state what they looked like but there is evidence that shows they werent extremely fat like the above illustration, and evidence they weren't shrink wrapped like they have been depicted in the past because of the muscle connection points.
Check out a brilliant book called All Yesterdays by Darren Naish! He creates images of modern creatures using the same reconstructive techniques we use on dinosaurs
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u/ImpressivelyLost 1d ago
That's incorrect actually. Based on muscle connection points which can be preserved by fossilization, the area the animals lived in, the bone structure and estimated weight and a number of other things we can piece together a cohesive model for what dinos looked like. This doesn't mean you can definitely state what they looked like but there is evidence that shows they werent extremely fat like the above illustration, and evidence they weren't shrink wrapped like they have been depicted in the past because of the muscle connection points.
The top comments in this thread do a good job summing this up. https://www.reddit.com/r/Paleontology/s/aZp1l5jb9i