What Dinosaur Has 500 Teeth? — Digital artwork of a Nigersaurus sauropod grazing in a savanna with baobab trees

What Dinosaur Has 500 Teeth?

2019catchphraseclassic

Published November 13, 2026

"What Dinosaur Has 500 Teeth?", also framed as "Don't Google Which Dinosaur Had 500 Teeth," is a Reddit bait joke from September 2019 that warns readers away from the dinosaur Nigersaurus because its scientific name sounds close to a racial slur. Anti-comedy subreddit posts spread the warning widely in late December 2019, and by January 2020 The Sun was covering the stunt as a racist prank campaign.

bait and switch memes prank memes subreddit origin memes 2019 memes delayed virality memes

Overview

The gag works because Nigersaurus, a real sauropod with roughly 500 small teeth, reads close enough to a racial slur when said aloud that the Google result feels like a trap1. Posts typically carry a pleading caption asking readers not to run the search, often paired with cartoon dinosaurs or edited screenshots of the Google search bar2. A second variant flips the warning and dares the reader to look it up, framing the Don't Google challenge as a prank to run on friends, siblings or unsuspecting parents3.

The humor sits firmly in the anti-comedy lane: the joke has no punchline on its own, and the payoff only lands if the target actually types the query. Reaction videos filmed that moment of recognition on YouTube, which gave the gag a second life outside Reddit5.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit (origin) / YouTube (viral spread)
Date
2019

A /r/teenagers user posted the earliest known warning against Googling "dinosaur with 500 teeth" on September 6, 2019; the account was later deleted4. The joke sat quiet for about three months before anti-comedy communities picked it back up in late December, which is where most readers first encountered the warning5.

How It Spread

Posts in anti-comedy subreddits revived the "What Dinosaur Has 500 Teeth?" bait in late December 2019. LordReggie69 put a version in /r/memes on December 282, and Redditor LifeOnMarsden posted another a day later in /r/okbuddyretard3. YouTube uploads followed in January 2020; a WarmerBasson69 video from January 20 earned more than 66,000 views before being deleted, and Izzy Tube followed on January 23 with a smaller clip that was also later removed5.

Mainstream press noticed quickly. In January 2020, The Sun ran a news item warning parents about the "sick stunt spread by racists in Reddit thread," explicitly naming Nigersaurus and the search-bait mechanic behind the joke1. YouTube reaction videos circulated through the month, with creators filming themselves typing the query and reacting on camera to the result67.

Timeline

2019-09-06

An /r/teenagers user posts the earliest known warning against Googling the 500-teeth dinosaur. The account is later deleted.

2019-12-28

LordReggie69 posts a version of the bait in /r/memes, one of the first anti-comedy-adjacent revivals.

2019-12-29

Redditor LifeOnMarsden posts an example in /r/okbuddyretard, helping move the gag into wider circulation.

2020-01-20

YouTube user WarmerBasson69 posts a video based on the joke that pulls over 66,000 views before deletion.

2020-01-23

Izzy Tube posts a second early YouTube version, later also deleted.

2020-01

The Sun publishes a news item framing the bait as a racist prank campaign spread on Reddit.

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