Sapient Dinosaurs

[Zor]

This is one of the questions that Paleontologists and people with basic understandings of Paleontology, Evolutionary biology and who enjoy Speculation like to grapple with is the concept of "If that asteriod missed us and went on it's merry way sixty five million years back as an otherwise unremarkable chunk of material, how would life evolve, and by far the most popular varient of which, what would a sapient dinosaur look like.

While this is of couse, impossible to be certain on, people generally think that if Dinosaurs had continued to evolve, small Theropods would be the most likely candidates, as they were...

1-Bipedal with arms capable of grasping stuff
2-Pretty damn smart for Dinosaurs

The most famous example of this speculative Sapient Dinosaurs is Dale Russell's Dinosauroid. An erect tail-less humaniod Reptile decended from Troodons.



Of course, this is a bit out of date as it has scales and not everyone thinks that Dinosaurs would so closely mimic human evolution. This guy being among the biggest critics, including artwork of a (butt ugly) alternate design.

But never the less, there are two main questions here...

1-Could a sapient Dinosaur Conceivably evolve
2-If so, what would they be like?

Zor

[Superman]

I think the problem with this idea is that it assumes that the evolutionary crowning achievement of Natural Selection is a bipedal organism which, morphologically, looks a lot like a human. Given how diverse Earth's life truly is, to assume that all life is evolving toward a humanoid being is kind of silly. Dinosaurs weren't even close to apes, or even mammals for that matter. I think this is another case of how we humans tend to let our imaginations "anthropomorphize" everything else.

[Junghalli]

1-Could a sapient Dinosaur Conceivably evolve

Assuming they were warm blooded, I don't see why not. If they were cold-bloods it's more iffy: the human brain takes a lot of energy and might not be viable without our high mammalian metabolisms. Of course, whether or not an intelligent dinosaur would have evolved intelligence is another matter. Evolution is very much a matter of chance

2-If so, what would they be like?

All depends on what sort of dinosaur they evolved from, but I'd say small therapods already had a pretty good basic "design" for a tool user, having a posture that left the hands free to serve as manipulatory organs.

[Akhlut]

Question 1: Yes, if the evolutionary forces on dinosaurs pushed them that way.
Question 2: Depends on what we start with, but, theropods are the best bet, as some members were likely pack-animals with a strong social structure and were hunters, with the former being more important than the latter. So, we'd probably end up with some sort of evolved theropod, but it'd be very difficult to say what it would look like without knowing the pressures on it.

[Superman]

Of all the species which predated the existence of dinosaurs, many of which are still alive today, none have evolved into what basically amounts to a primate. Why should we assume that any dinosaur would have?

[Akhlut]

Because the primate build isn't necessarily the only one for intelligent creatures. Cetaceans are exceptionally smart, as are cephalpods. The main problem for them to evolve more intelligence, or, at least, tool-building is that they live in water, which is a very poor medium for that sort of thing.

Further, intelligence seems to be centered on binocular vision (a very common trait) and ever-expanding social groups (humans ideal group size being 150 vs. 50 for chimpanzees, for instance). Thus, if a dinosaur species had both, then it would likely evolve human-level intelligence.

Anyway, why should we assume that a dinosaur would have? Because we like to speculate about things that could have happened but did not.

[ArmorPierce]

It's possible that it could have evolved higher intelligence, however it is tremendously unlikely it would loose its tail and walk like a human. I see no reason and no evolutionary pressure to do so if it already is walking upright.

[Starglider]

John McLoughlin's sentient dinos were pretty cool, in terms of plausible biology and a reasonably interesting speculative culture, in The Toolmaker Koan (it's a shame all the human and AI characters sucked so much).

I seem to recall a very similar 'sapient dinos on a big spaceship come back to earth from a long stasis' motif in the pen+paper RPG Conspiracy X.

[Kanastrous]

In "The Second Experiment" J.O. Jeppson gets into dinosaur-uplift.

[LadyTevar]

The best models I can think of are the veloceraptor and related breeds. First, they were social/pack animals. Second, they were bipedal, freeing up front limbs for tool use. Binocular vision and a long neck means they don't need to do as humans and start walking upright to see over tall grasses, so the body shape would have only minimal changes .. only to the hands to shrink the claws and possibly move one 'finger' to make grasping and holding easier. Eggs are fine, but there should be family groups to help raise/train the child. Childhood may be extended, perhaps several years spent as juveniles in order to better learn to interact socially and mentally with the adults.

[Superman]

This reminds me of the argument UFO types use to claim that it's reasonable to assume that a hominid species could have evolved on another planet. It might be possible, but it's very unlikely. Our situation here would have better odds, but again all we know is that we have one instance of this particular evolutionary occurrence (evolution of the Homo genus).

Like Akhlut mentioned, some cetacean species evolved large brains which have a large neocortex regions. Why should we assume that intelligent species require a hominid shape to achieve this?

[Kanastrous]

Are there known dinosaur fossils with opposable digits?

[Darth Raptor]

Are there known dinosaur fossils with opposable digits?

Yes, the Troodon in the OP, which is precisely why it's commonly regarded as the most likely ancestor for hypothetical sapient dinosaurs, never mind the fact that it's an obligate carnivore. While that doesn't necessarily preclude sapience, it does present an obstacle for any kind of meaningful civilization. Without omnivory, it's questionable whether a species would ever develop agriculture.

[Dracofrost]

What about herding and livestock farming? That seems a perfectly reasonable option, and though it would limit the scale of civilization, depending upon the efficiency of their livestock, it would still allow much greater concentration than hunter/gathering. Now that's an interesting question: what late Cretaceous dinosaurs would likely be domesticated by Troodon descendant sapients?

[ArmorPierce]

That raises another question. With the environment be able to support a purely carnivorous civilization? For most humans for most of history, meat served as a supplement rather than a full daily intake of food (with the exception being humans living in frigid environments such as intuits). As it is, humans did a pretty good job of wiping out many animal species through our diet.

[Darth Raptor]

Without feed crops, you're never going to get "herding" that isn't just really clever hunting. I suppose if one assumes Megalocephalosaurus einsteini would figure out how to raise crops without the impetus of wanting to eat said crops that's one thing, but yes, you're still going to run into ecological capacity issues.

[Sturmfalke]

That raises another question. With the environment be able to support a purely carnivorous civilization? For most humans for most of history, meat served as a supplement rather than a full daily intake of food (with the exception being humans living in frigid environments such as intuits). As it is, humans did a pretty good job of wiping out many animal species through our diet.

If by "through our diet" you mean agriculture in general, yes. But I am not aware that many animal species became extinct because they were edible. Actually, I always thoght that beeing edible was a reason to keep a species alive instead of hunting it to extinction.

[Darth Raptor]

The woolly mammoth, dodo, elephant bird, moa, and numerous other species were quite literally eaten to death by humans or human hangers-on (dogs, etc.). Not all animals are viable candidates for domestication, otherwise there would be ivory farms. It's impossible to know which species from the hypothetical Chicxulub-never-happened fauna could be domesticated either.

[Anguirus]

While I find the idea of sapient dinosaurs very tempting as well, I feel like pointing out that there may be a reason why in hundreds of millions of years of being the most abundant large animals around, diapsids (dinosaurs and their ilk) never seemed to evolve sapience, whereas after the K-T extinction synapsid (mammals and their ilk) evolution produced us after 65 million years.

Is it just a favorable confluence of events? Or is there something in dinosaurian brain structure/chemistry that limited even the dexterous troodontids? It's probably impossible to know.

[Darth Raptor]

Is it just a favorable confluence of events? Or is there something in dinosaurian brain structure/chemistry that limited even the dexterous troodontids? It's probably impossible to know.

True, but I find it unlikely. Remember that primates are among the oldest of all mammalian groups and originated very early in the Tertiary Period. So in essence, mammals have had 50+ megayears to evolve sapience and have only done so in the one. If you want to be really harsh, we've had longer than the archosaurs. I think it's far more likely that sapience itself requires an extremely unique and unlikely blend of selective forces in addition to physiological attributes. This would also help explain the Fermi paradox.

[Tasoth]

For the bipedal walking dinosaur, it might make some sense for them to select for a more upright posture for several reasons. One of the factors that selected for an upright stance in humans was that it minimized how much sunlight actually struck the body, or so I was taught. Also, loads over a certain size are going to be a bitch to carry if you're built like a theropod, regardless of whether you have a tail or not. IIRC, the human bipedal stance is also highly efficient when it comes to long distance movement.

Also, in reference to Starglider bringing up the Saurians from ConX, those guys were master energy-matter manipulators and managed to actually glass earth back into an ice age.

[Akhlut]

Yes, the Troodon in the OP, which is precisely why it's commonly regarded as the most likely ancestor for hypothetical sapient dinosaurs, never mind the fact that it's an obligate carnivore. While that doesn't necessarily preclude sapience, it does present an obstacle for any kind of meaningful civilization. Without omnivory, it's questionable whether a species would ever develop agriculture.

Well, if the selective pressures on Troodons went toward dwarfism, then they might be able to farm insects, which wouldn't require really specialized agriculture, but would also be a large source of important foodstuffs for a relatively small carnivore. So, it is plausible for something like that to occur. Although, that probably wouldn't be enough to build a full-blown civilization, as I've heard from my history professor say that most civilizations that arise do so because of the need to harness water for agricultural purposes.

[Junghalli]

It's possible that it could have evolved higher intelligence, however it is tremendously unlikely it would loose its tail and walk like a human. I see no reason and no evolutionary pressure to do so if it already is walking upright.

We might assume that Russel's Dinosauroid went through an arboreal stage of evolution and then came down from the trees at some point, like we did. That might get you a humanoid form.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Carnivores can handle eating eggs, at least modern ones can. Perhaps they could supplement their diet with eggs.

[Mayabird]

There's no reason to get a humanoid form. Don't even need opposable digits, though some kind of manipulative ability is helpful. I've pointed it out before, but high levels of intelligence can be found in not just primates and cetaceans but also elephants, parrots, and crows. I will also note that the latter two are very probably descended from dinosaurs themselves.