Early Thursday morning, I came across this Daily Mail story about how dinosaurs had sex, because I've organized my life in such a way that if articles featuring scientifically frank depictions of dinosaur humping get published, I will always know about it.

Immediately, my Spider Sense told me that something wasn't quite right about this article, and I'll get into that (and specifically what it means for online journalism), but I think we should probably break down the article itself first.

The Article

DailyMail

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"The Joy of T-Rex," the horribly titled article in question, tells us that a number of paleontologists have been studying dinosaur mating habits for quite some time and have come to the conclusion that the dinosaurs did it doggy style. Surprise! To support this claim, they have a quote from an assistant professor of biology ...

... and the story also features "scientific illustrations" to give us a visual of what this dinosaur sex might look like. Now, I'm not a dinosaur-fuck-biologist/artist (yet. Fingers crossed!), but I do know right off the bat that whoever drew these pictures was masturbating.