Pretty much. It helps if you think the word “dinosaur” has two partially overlapping meanings:
Cladistic: every single descendant of the last common ancestor between the triceratops and a duck, including both.
Popular: a bunch of extinct animals like the T-Rex, velociraptor, triceratops, etc. Plus animals visually resembling them, regardless of cladistic classification. Notably, it does not includes Aves aka modern birds.
So for example. Turkeys would fit #1 but not #2. Depending on the person, dimetrodons and pterosaurs would fit #2, but not #1 [see note]. A T-rex would fit both.
In other words if your kid asks you “I want to see the dinos on a screen!”, do not bring them to see a rotisserie chicken being roasted. I repeat, do not. They’re using “dino” for meaning #2.
NOTE: pterosaurs aren’t from the clade Dinosauria, but from a distantly related clade called Pterosauria. Dimetrodons are synapsids so they’re closer to us mammals than to Dinosauria.
Pretty much. It helps if you think the word “dinosaur” has two partially overlapping meanings:
So for example. Turkeys would fit #1 but not #2. Depending on the person, dimetrodons and pterosaurs would fit #2, but not #1 [see note]. A T-rex would fit both.
In other words if your kid asks you “I want to see the dinos on a screen!”, do not bring them to see a rotisserie chicken being roasted. I repeat, do not. They’re using “dino” for meaning #2.
NOTE: pterosaurs aren’t from the clade Dinosauria, but from a distantly related clade called Pterosauria. Dimetrodons are synapsids so they’re closer to us mammals than to Dinosauria.