Re: Dinosauroids

["T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>]

On 12/7/05, VladimÃr  Socha <Seismosaurus@seznam.cz> wrote:
> Good day!
> I'm searching some information on Dalle Russel's 1981 dinosauroid model + all 
> related info. Also, I've noticed there were some scientific (?) conferences 
> on the theme of possible inteligent dinosaur forms. Are there any related 
> articles on the web? What's the general opinion now? Is there any relevant 
> reason physio/neuro or morphological why higher inteligence or even culture 
> of some sort wasn't possible for dinosaurs to evolve to? Was it discussed 
> earlier on the list? Thank you, in advance

My off-the-cuff take:
Look at the brain sizes of Mesozoic dinosaurs and mammals. The most
"encephalized" ones are comparable to the *least* "encephalized" ones
of today. _Troodon_ and _Bambiraptor_ were geniuses for their day, but
dullards compared to modern dinosaurs like parrots, crows, etc.

Why are mammals and dinosaurs today generally bigger-brained? Probably
a Red Queen sort of "brains race" (in which our species is the current
frontrunner). But it has taken a long time for this to come about. It
took 150 million years to go just from _Coelophysis_ brains to
_Troodon_ brains.

I think if there had been no K/T event there could well be dinosaurs
with advanced technology today (although they would probably not look
very much like the "dinosauroid"). But there was an event, and the
only dinosaurs that pulled through were fliers. Having a huge brain is
maladaptive for fliers, which is why the smartest birds seem to be
smart more because of how their brains are organized than because of
their mass. (Someone who knows more about avian neurology may feel
free to shoot me down here.) Terrestrial and aquatic mammals, on the
other hand, have no such limitation--hence our own relatively gigantic
heads.
--
Mike Keesey
The Dinosauricon: http://dino.lm.com
Parry & Carney: http://parryandcarney.com