Current Events > If that asteroid hadn't killed the dinosaurs millions of years ago do you think

(+) Yeah! (+)

...humans would have still evolved?

---

bumpisss

---

nah. too many things would have been different

---

No, we'd all be lizard-bird men and there would be conspiracy theories about the underground monkeymen who control everything.

---

Probably not.

---

Obviously not. That's a silly question.
---

Corrupt_Power posted...

No, we'd all be lizard-bird men and there would be conspiracy theories about the underground monkeymen who control everything.

---

nope. mammals would have remained a tiny little niche group of lifeforms. mammals never had a chance until the dinosaurs were gone

Not at all. It's probably more likely that dinosaurs would have further evolved to develop intelligence similar to ours.

---

Solar_Crimson posted...

Not at all. It's probably more likely that dinosaurs would have further evolved to develop intelligence similar to ours.

I wonder how similar they would be to us though. even if they were smart, they might not develop the same kind of relationship bonds humans have or even other mammals have. which might be a major part of how we grew as a species and a civilization

Nah. Dinosaurs held back a lot of things lol.

---

Absolutely not

---

bumpiss

---

Nope. Well maybe but we would be living underground at the least.And you know damn well we would be fighting tremors or some shit by now lol.

---

Would Dinosaurs really have evolved to be more humanoid? They existed for millions of years and didnt

Possibly. The asteroid wasnt the only thing going on. The question is if they would have been able to adapt to the changing environment fast enough to stay on top. Remember, not all of them died off anyway.

---

Killed off most of the dinosaurs you mean. And dinosaurs were still the dominant land animals up until 40 Mya.

---

bumpo

---

Shadowplay posted...

Killed off most of the dinosaurs you mean. And dinosaurs were still the dominant land animals up until 40 Mya.

no they weren't , don't you mean 65 mya?

---

DoubleOSnake posted...

no they weren't , don't you mean 65 mya?

No, he means 40 mya.

---

then he's wrong, duh

---

I have mini t-rex survivors running around my yard...chickens of all things, lol.

Has anyone noticed how chickens are literally a dna copy of a t-rex minus the size and useless tiny arms? The feet/legs are literally the same; really scaly with 3 point toes with a claw at the end. Their body structure/neck/head are literally exactly the same just on a smaller scale. And of course it's a bird and not a reptile.

Kinda amazing when you really compare the two, it makes you wonder how and why.

Demon1050 posted...

I have mini t-rex survivors running around my yard...chickens of all things, lol.

Has anyone noticed how chickens are literally a dna copy of a t-rex minus the size and useless tiny arms? The feet/legs are literally the same; really scaly with 3 point toes with a claw at the end. Their body structure/neck/head are literally exactly the same just on a smaller scale. And of course it's a bird and not a reptile.

Kinda amazing when you really compare the two, it makes you wonder how and why.

yeah that is pretty amazing, it would have been awesome to have seen them

---

Demon1050 posted...

I have mini t-rex survivors running around my yard...chickens of all things, lol.

You have distant cousins of the T-Rex running around in your back yard, not direct descendants.

Has anyone noticed how chickens are literally a dna copy of a t-rex minus the size and useless tiny arms?

In fairness, they may have been covered in feathers. So maybe a little bit more like a wing than one would suspect.

The feet/legs are literally the same; really scaly with 3 point toes with a claw at the end.

The scales of a bird's legs are actually believed to have evolved independently of the scales of other dinosaurs that may have had them. Supposedly, they're descended from degenerate feathers.

And of course it's a bird and not a reptile.

This is incorrect. Birds are just a subgroup of dinosaurs, which are a subgroup of reptiles. Therefore, birds are reptiles. There's no sharp distinction between birds and non-avian dinosaurs. Most of the obvious traits that we're familiar with in birds first evolved in some common ancestor that they share with close relatives such as velociraptor and deinonychus. Some of those traits were repurposed for a highly specialized flight based lifestyle, such as feathers and their forelimbs; the latter had previously been used for grabbing prey, often with a single claw on the feathered forelimb being used to assist in the matter.

Kinda amazing when you really compare the two, it makes you wonder how and why.

The common ancestor of all living birds, as mentioned above, would have evolved to live a highly specialized, flight based lifestyle, just as most birds do today. As we know, the asteroid impact killed all dinosaurs except some birds (they were certainly still affected), and mammals were eventually able to take over many of the ecological niches previously held by dinosaurs, such as predators or grazing herds. However, birds share an advantage with mammals over other vertebrates: they're warm blooded, or, endothermic. It's not clear what the advantage of endothermy is compared to ectothermy, the cold blooded lifestyle, but endothermy (or something close to it) did seem to allow the ancestors of mammals to become the dominant animals on land millions of years before dinosaurs did the same.

Birds are constrained by the fact that they have such highly specialized forelimbs and there doesn't seem to have been anyway for them to re-evolve some unspecialized forms of forelimbs akin to what we see in some mammals. However, because they are endothermic and highly intelligent (among other reasons), some were able to evolve to fit different, ground based niches. And, after all, because of birds, dinosaurs were still the dominant land vertebrates up until about 40 million years ago, well after the asteroid impact.

tl;dr: Birds being warm-blooded, among other reasons, seems to give them some sort of advantage over other reptiles, allowing them to compete with mammals for some certain roles in nature.

---

Ever played Chrono Trigger?

DoubleOSnake posted...

then he's wrong, duh

Didn't see this initially. No, birds, a lineage of dinosaurs, were actually the dominant land vertebrates up until around 40 Mya. It was only around that time that mammals really started to diversify. In other words, it's a common misconception that the age of dinosaurs ended when the asteroid hit earth and wiped most of them out.

---

Yes? If the asteroid, and subsequent ice age that followed couldnt kill whatever we evolved from.....what makes you all think the dinosaurs could?

Humanity would still be around, maybe not in our current form and achievements in a far more hostile envirement but still around and the dominant species.

---

Prismsblade posted...

Yes? If the asteroid, and subsequent ice age that followed couldnt kill whatever we evolved from.....what makes you all think the dinosaurs could?

That's not how evolution works.
---

star trek voyager already answered that question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjuptfaTqyo

---

bumpo

---