Another banger from /r/stupiddovenests - at least the tag is appropriate this time

so the Spouse and I like to have a lot of verbal discussions about the universe where the asteroid didn't hit. mainly spec evo stuff. what would evolve into what, that kind of thing. we know we're not alone in that.

we maintain that humans evolved alongside some pretty terrifying mammalian megafauna, so why not dinosaurian? so what would a realistic sapient ape in a dinosaur world be?

it's taken some thinking, but:

wookies.

we'd be wookies.

Here's a thing to consider. It is highly likely that we would not exist without elephants.

There is strong evidence and a growing belief that our ancestors specifically used the trails that were laid down by elephant ancestors, and that's what allowed us to come down from the trees permanently and become bipedal.

Let's take humans off the table, and go with "us." I agree that with dinosaurs on the table, we would not be human. The events and multiple key species that allowed us to evolve as humans would not have happened.

And it was the KT Extinction event that allowed mammals to climb up and become more diverse than rodent and possum like creatures.

Now the question is, would simian-like creatures still evolve, with dinosaurs? It's probable, because it's not a huge anatomical leap to get from a possum to a monkey. And I could see simians being very successful in a dinosaur world, and even out competing some raptors occupying similar niches.

Now, going back to elephants, ceratopsians and hadrosaurs occupied similar niches to elephants, and were similar in size. They would have blazed the same trails that our ancestors used to come down from the trees.

And I don't think the dinosaurs would be inherently more dangerous than the megafauna our ancestors faced. The giant theropods would likely prefer to take larger creatures than us. Medium to small theropods would prey on us, but hell... So did lions and tigers and short-faced bears. So did wolves. And we survived that.

It would be in our advantage to stay small, make weapons, and burrow. We wouldn't be bigfoot wookies, we'd be Hobbits.

I completely agree with all of this and I think it's a coin flip whether we'd get tree dwelling wookies (because the predators were just Too Much to come down) or hobbits (because your scenario)

wait

wait

wait

BOTH EVOLVE

two sapient ape species

hobbits and wookies

and they'd be so different and deeply diverged we wouldn't have a neanderthal-hybrid-mixing situation....

just imagine a hobbit-wookie hybrid though

…i regret to inform you that you’ve just reinvented the ewok.

A History of Painting (With Dinosaurs)

Hi Tumblrs! My new book, A History of Painting (With Dinosaurs) has launched, and you should be able to buy on Amazon from just about anywhere in the world.

Ever wondered what it would have been like if famous painters of the past had the good sense to paint dinosaurs? Well now you can find out!

Here's some country-specific links, but search your own local Amazon if it's not listed: US, UK, Germany, Canada, Australia

Yesssss

I would like to add that I have now in fact bought this book and it is excellent! It's very tongue in cheek but the art is good (I really want a print of the Klimt dinosaur). It's like $20, please go buy it for anyone with a vague interest in art history and dinosaurs, or for yourself!

My book is fun! And cheap! And I get a good cut!

this looks delightful, perhaps a bit like Great Housewives of Art, which i enjoy.

All right, what’s up with the red T-rex? Why does both antichrist and fake-antichrist have red T-rexes? Is it only a joke because the dinosaurs do not really exist there? Is it a connection? Why red? O_O

Retro vs Modern #04: Archaeopteryx lithographica

Archaeopteryx lithographica was first discovered in the 1860s, still in the early days of our understanding of dinosaurs, and was a timely example of the sort of transitional form first proposed by Charles Darwin only a couple of years earlier. For over a century it was a famous icon of evolution, and has been part of a lot of weird drama over the years – it’s been central to arguments about bird origins, was accused of being a fake, and one specimen even vanished under mysterious circumstances.

1860s-1970s

At the time of its discovery Archaeopteryx was actually fairly quickly accepted as demonstrating an evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds… but sadly this view wasn’t to last.

In the early 20th century opinion shifted towards birds not being dinosaurs but instead descended from “thecodont” reptiles (what we’d now call early archosaurs and pseudosuchians). And so for a long time Archaeopteryx ended up being depicted as simply the “first bird”, a half-reptile half-avian curiosity.

Reconstructions of it from this time period varied from very good to kind of awkward depending on how much the artist was trying to emphasize its reptilian ancestry, commonly featuring wonky-fingered wings and a scaly lizard-like face. It was also frequently depicted with bright gaudy parrot-like coloration, with a specific yellow-and-blue color scheme becoming a “paleoart meme” so prolific that it would eventually inspire the design of a Pokémon.

2020s

After decades of stagnation the dinosaur-bird link was resurrected in the early 1970s, with the discovery of the bird-like Deinonychus kicking off the Dinosaur Renaissance. Along with the explosion of spectacularly feathered dinosaur fossils from China in the mid-1990s, Archaeopteryx finally began to be properly presented as a feathered dinosaur again.

Continued study of the known Archaeopteryx specimens in the last couple of decades has vastly improved our knowledge of what this animal would have looked like, revealing previously unknown features like the exact plumage arrangement on its wings and legs, and even potentially some details about its coloration.

Living in southern Germany during the Late Jurassic, about 150-148 million years ago, Archaeopteryx inhabited what was then an island archipelago in a shallow tropical sea. It grew to around 50cm long (~1'8") and was almost entirely covered with pennaceous feathers, externally probably just looking like a long-tailed bird.

It had broad wings, with asymmetrical flight feathers similar to those of modern birds but with more extensive coverts, some of which were probably a matte black color. Its legs also sported long “feather trousers” and a “raptor”-like hyperextensible second toe, and there was a slight forked shape to the tip of its tail.

Arguments have gone back and forth about how well it was actually able to fly, with current thinking being that it made short bursts of active flapping flight a little like a modern pheasant – but since its shoulder joints were less mobile than those of modern birds it must have used a different sort of flight stroke to generate lift.

It’s no longer always considered to have been the “first bird”, or even to have been the direct ancestor of any modern birds. Instead it represents an offshoot lineage of early birds (or very-bird-like dinosaurs) that was just one part of a still-expanding flock of feathery fossil discoveries.

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Nix Illustration | Tumblr | Twitter | Patreon

This is fascinating, really cool information on scientific progress but can we all imagine for a moment how you’d feel if you travelled back in time to dinosaur Germany and saw like… a pigeon.

oooh, i just listened to this episode of the life scientific, and one of the things they talk about is the dinosaur-bird process! it is super interesting! it's one of the podcasts that stays up to listen any time.