The article makes use of a corpus from English language public discourse to explore the metaphors based on the source-concept of dinosaur. In the instances which have been used, the basic source-target mapping is expanded into creative elaborations which include fables or stories with some moral lesson. Such innovative meaning construction can be explained by a conceptual analysis of metaphor, complemented by blended scenarios that are not deducible from either the source or the target inputs, and which constitute an emergent semantic structure. There are also some constraints in the form of source-based default assumptions about "prototypical" source aspects. Those constraints lead the hearer to a default outcome (extinction) which may be used to derive a moral conclusion. The dinosaur scenario structure is given in the form of a table which shows the input level, as well as the metaphorical blending and the inferences drawn from it. (Begoña Casasnovas Gil, Ruiz de Mendoza Group)