219
Today I learned that dinosaur secondary brains are not actually a thing
(www.smithsonianmag.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2025
219 points (97.8% liked)
Today I Learned
24723 readers
210 users here now
What did you learn today? Share it with us!
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
TIL a second hip brain was once a theory.
If be interested to know where and when that was considered a fact, because I'm 45 and never heard that before.
I'm 40 and remember being told that the Brontosaurus had multiple smaller brains down it's spine so that it could react to stimuli without having to wait for the signal to get all the way to its head and back.
I also rember hearing at some point more recently that the Brontosaurus probably didn't exist. 🤷
tbf that's sorta true, they didn't have "mini-brains" but stuff like severe pain signals get processed in the spine, since every millisecond matters when you're absentmindedly stepping onto smouldering coal. That's why reflexes are reflexive, the brain isn't even involved at all.
That’s true of all vertebrates, including you!
It does make you wonder how many things we've all been carrying around in our heads since childhood, that were just passed down through generations without any amount of checking.
Chances are she was taught it when she was at school, by somebody else who was taught it when they were at school. Before the internet it was kind of hard to look shit like that up, and encyclopaedias might not have covered it either. UNless you spent your life delving into a specific area, the edges of knowledge were (and still are) kind of fuzzy.
“Going out with wet hair gives you a cold” No, viruses from shit indoor air quality and smoke from indoor fires inflaming your mucous membranes gives you a cold.
I'd heard of it.
I've heard of it.
And could still be true.
https://animaltriangle.com/animals-with-multiple-brains/
Edit: See my later comment on more sources on bones. Fr guys, I have no idea either way, but if you're going to say my source is full of shit, provide your own legit sources to back you up.
Edit 2: If you continue down this thread, there's a lot of trolling going on. This could be for 2 purposes, make me look like an unreliable source (on biology, that might be true) and ruin the vibe.
May I ask how you found this absolute train wreck of a website?
I can’t speak for every creature in this source but practically everything it says about turtles is a straight fabrication. They have one brain. It’s oddly shaped but just one. Next, it’s in their skull, not their neck - that’s crazy. Finally, TURTLES HAVE BONES WTF
What the fuck is that article? It's absolute nonsense. Like a first gen AI was trained on a single biology textbook.
You didn't know that cuttlefish can derive non-trivial solutions of the Einstein field equations? They can solve all ten at once because they have ten brains.
I thought you were trolling. But, no. Those quotes are actually in the linked article (original, archive link 1, and archive link 2 for posterity). Wtf
Edit: archive links.
The entire website is like that. Except nearly every article is
I mean, yes, but... What other vertebrates have developed a secondary brain? That's a big deal evolutionarily, considering all other vertebrates have the one.
It's been theorized that our digestive system acts as a sort of second brain.
Isn't that mostly pushed by the vaccines-cause-autism guy?
No idea who you are talking about, but it's well known that we have a really large and complex neuron structure spread through our digestive system.
Nobody calls it a brain just because it's not an organ.
There is SO MUCH to unpack on this subject. We're just now figuring out how our gut biome influences the rest of our body and mind, as if those are separate things. :)
Edit:
Source 2:
https://biologyinsights.com/do-turtles-have-bones-explaining-their-skeleton/
Source 3:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle#/media/File:How_the_Turtle_Gets_its_Shell.svg
Looks like turtles have bones and you all flunked biology class. I didn't flunk, but I didn't pass with flying colors, so I have no idea on any of this shit.
Turtles don't have bones? Is this satire?
https://biologyinsights.com/do-turtles-have-bones-explaining-their-skeleton/
How are you finding these sites? They're both AI generated ad farms with absolutely no seo. This one at least seems credible but it's just bizarre. It's literally just random science-adjacent Q&As on a science-adjacent URL with no other info. It's like a liminal space of online pseudo science. The biology backrooms.
This isn’t true, the other poster’s source is likely AI generated. Turtles certainly have unique brain structures, but it’s still considered one brain with multiple regions. And these regions are all within the skull, not the neck.
EDIT: Just read their source again and they state turtles don’t have bones. Wow.
Haha I missed that clear horrendously nonsense statement! F-ing social media doom-scroll-disease! After all, what respectable vertebrate would lack any bones?!
It gets better. Apparently, we all have multiple brains.
It says leeches have 32 brains, pea sized, with 400 neurons, and 500 different types of neurons. Yeah, that's clearly bullshit.
Sorry about that, I edited it in. I'm a little in shock that there are animals that have more than one brain.
S'all good, man.
On what topics are you a reliable source?
Not sure if you’re trolling or just a bit lost mate but you’re the only one who’s posted a source claiming turtles don’t have bones. Everyone else is aware that turtles have bones.
E: Ah a troll after all. Started half good but honestly turned to shit pretty quick. 4/10. Turtles may have 1 brain but you, my friend, have 0.
it's at least true for me tbh
lmfao are you fucking joking? you made yourself look like an unreliable source by referring to such a dogshit website/article. it actually required zero help from anybody else to shoot your credibility.