09 Feb 2010, 4:32 pm
09 Feb 2010, 5:01 pm
Tensu wrote:
ZEGH8578 wrote:
Tensu wrote:
ZEGH8578 wrote:
tensu: if dromaeosaurians (and their relatives) survived they woulda evolved into birds 
Troodons where particularly smart even by dromaeosaurian standards. I know that's not saying much, but I can dream leave me alone!
why would they evolve into birds? if the meteor didn't hit, evolving into a bird would mean moving down on the food chain to be outcompeted by pterodactyls. and if they did evolve into birds, something was wiring the troodons for brains in a time when it seemed brawn was all that mattered. There's still the possibility that they would have kept getting smarter... I mean it takes more brainpower to understand flight, and some of the birds today are pretty freaking smart... who's to say that they wouldn't have evolved into a race of intelligent birds or dinosaur-birds that used their wings for locomotion and their feet as we use are hands? that would be bad-***, and the most bad-*** answer in any sci-fi question is the correct one, right?
um, this "dino-humanoid" idea is long since debunket after we realized:
birds did indeed evolve from dinosaurs
any pterosaurian competitor to birds dissapeared during the late jurassic, leaving mostly only giant pterosaurs filling a different niche. sure no birds evolved from troodon per se, since birds and troodon allready lived side by side, but birds evolved from dinosaurs _very_ similar to troodon. by that logic, troodon is much more likely to have gone for a birdy evolution than a people-evolution, since people come from simians :]
hey, you had to argue!
You do not appear to know as much about paleobiology and evolution as you think you do.
I was not arguing for the dino-humanoid. I never once suggested Troodons becoming humanoid. I am well aware birds existed in the Cretaceous. I am also well aware that birds are an offshoot of the dinosaurs. If you want to argue with me, please argue against points that I actually made, and not ones you fabricated and projected on to me because they are easier to refute.
There where two known strains of Troodon at the end of the Cretaceous: the smaller southern strain and the larger northern. The northern strain lived in Alaska and was presumably bigger because there where no Tyranosaurids competing with it in that region, but there where large herd dinosaurs to hunt. If the northern Troodon where to evolve into a bird, it would be evolving itself out of the apex predator niche, because it would need to become smaller and lighter to do so, too small and light to hunt large game, unless it would be harpy-eagle sized and still hunt in packs. If the Troodon gave up as a large game hunter, it would also be moving out of a niche in which it had little or no competition and into one with more competition. While I did suggest it would be cool to have flying Troodons, I assumed we were joking around at that point. The northern strain would have most likely remained on the ground. Now size is a double-edged sword: it makes you stronger, but also increases your appatite. The Troodons had already evolved into a size that could take big game, and their senses where already phenominal. Thus the most likely route of evolution wold be brainpower, as it wold help the Troodons better co-ordinate their packs and better telegraph their prey's attacks, leading to more successful hunts and less casualties.
If Troodons did evolve fight, it would most likely be in responce to defensive adaptations in their prey that made them vulnerable to airial attack, which is unlikely, since I have trouble thinking of a realistic defense that could be overcome by flight and not jumping. of course, by "most likely" I am assuming Tyranosaurids would not evolve a means of traveling north and knocking the Troodons out of their apex predator slot.
So ultimately a lot dose depend on how the Troodon's prey evolved n responce to them, and on what the environment would have done, but Troodons, at least the northern strain, would have most likely stayed on the ground. I would also like to pont out that evolution is a lot about niches, and the intelligence niche was vacant, with the Troodons the only species poised to evolved into it.
Maybe next time you'll do a little more double-checking before you have the audacity to go around laughing at people.
woooow way to go at my throat, little sensitive or what?
i was simplifying it.
what you wrote is nothing but a lot of VERY general stuff about small predatory dinosaurs, and also a lot of completely unfounded speculation. troodon per se is not a very well known dinosaur, compared to for example saurornithoides. so "hahaha" at you again :] way to get all sensitive about it :b and check YOUR facts before you get all "pwn"-ish on people.
09 Feb 2010, 5:10 pm
Yeah, I had a bit of a fascination with dinosaurs, Watched the walking with dinosaurs series as it came out.
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iamnotaparakeet
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09 Feb 2010, 5:14 pm
ZEGH8578 wrote:
Tensu wrote:
ZEGH8578 wrote:
Tensu wrote:
ZEGH8578 wrote:
tensu: if dromaeosaurians (and their relatives) survived they woulda evolved into birds
Troodons where particularly smart even by dromaeosaurian standards. I know that's not saying much, but I can dream leave me alone!
why would they evolve into birds? if the meteor didn't hit, evolving into a bird would mean moving down on the food chain to be outcompeted by pterodactyls. and if they did evolve into birds, something was wiring the troodons for brains in a time when it seemed brawn was all that mattered. There's still the possibility that they would have kept getting smarter... I mean it takes more brainpower to understand flight, and some of the birds today are pretty freaking smart... who's to say that they wouldn't have evolved into a race of intelligent birds or dinosaur-birds that used their wings for locomotion and their feet as we use are hands? that would be bad-***, and the most bad-*** answer in any sci-fi question is the correct one, right?
um, this "dino-humanoid" idea is long since debunket after we realized:
birds did indeed evolve from dinosaurs
any pterosaurian competitor to birds dissapeared during the late jurassic, leaving mostly only giant pterosaurs filling a different niche. sure no birds evolved from troodon per se, since birds and troodon allready lived side by side, but birds evolved from dinosaurs _very_ similar to troodon. by that logic, troodon is much more likely to have gone for a birdy evolution than a people-evolution, since people come from simians :]
hey, you had to argue!
You do not appear to know as much about paleobiology and evolution as you think you do.
I was not arguing for the dino-humanoid. I never once suggested Troodons becoming humanoid. I am well aware birds existed in the Cretaceous. I am also well aware that birds are an offshoot of the dinosaurs. If you want to argue with me, please argue against points that I actually made, and not ones you fabricated and projected on to me because they are easier to refute.
There where two known strains of Troodon at the end of the Cretaceous: the smaller southern strain and the larger northern. The northern strain lived in Alaska and was presumably bigger because there where no Tyranosaurids competing with it in that region, but there where large herd dinosaurs to hunt. If the northern Troodon where to evolve into a bird, it would be evolving itself out of the apex predator niche, because it would need to become smaller and lighter to do so, too small and light to hunt large game, unless it would be harpy-eagle sized and still hunt in packs. If the Troodon gave up as a large game hunter, it would also be moving out of a niche in which it had little or no competition and into one with more competition. While I did suggest it would be cool to have flying Troodons, I assumed we were joking around at that point. The northern strain would have most likely remained on the ground. Now size is a double-edged sword: it makes you stronger, but also increases your appatite. The Troodons had already evolved into a size that could take big game, and their senses where already phenominal. Thus the most likely route of evolution wold be brainpower, as it wold help the Troodons better co-ordinate their packs and better telegraph their prey's attacks, leading to more successful hunts and less casualties.
If Troodons did evolve fight, it would most likely be in responce to defensive adaptations in their prey that made them vulnerable to airial attack, which is unlikely, since I have trouble thinking of a realistic defense that could be overcome by flight and not jumping. of course, by "most likely" I am assuming Tyranosaurids would not evolve a means of traveling north and knocking the Troodons out of their apex predator slot.
So ultimately a lot dose depend on how the Troodon's prey evolved n responce to them, and on what the environment would have done, but Troodons, at least the northern strain, would have most likely stayed on the ground. I would also like to pont out that evolution is a lot about niches, and the intelligence niche was vacant, with the Troodons the only species poised to evolved into it.
Maybe next time you'll do a little more double-checking before you have the audacity to go around laughing at people.
woooow way to go at my throat, little sensitive or what?
i was simplifying it.
what you wrote is nothing but a lot of VERY general stuff about small predatory dinosaurs, and also a lot of completely unfounded speculation. troodon per se is not a very well known dinosaur, compared to for example saurornithoides. so "hahaha" at you again :] way to get all sensitive about it :b and check YOUR facts before you get all "pwn"-ish on people.
Dudes, you're going to get this thread sent to WP's version of hell if you don't quit.
09 Feb 2010, 5:25 pm
09 Feb 2010, 6:57 pm
Tensu wrote:
I have met some... unsavory debaters in my time on other forums.
When people make a rather condescending comment, like, "You had to argue" accompanied with a smile or laugh, I make the assumption that they are laughing at me, based on those past experiences.
I felt you where accusing me of not knowing what I was talking about, so I defended myself from this accusation, be it real or perceived.
When people make a rather condescending comment, like, "You had to argue" accompanied with a smile or laugh, I make the assumption that they are laughing at me, based on those past experiences.
I felt you where accusing me of not knowing what I was talking about, so I defended myself from this accusation, be it real or perceived.
your among aspies. one of our symptoms is to unknowingly offend others by being short or abrupt ;]
*peace pipe?*
09 Feb 2010, 7:43 pm
ZEGH8578 wrote:
Tensu wrote:
I have met some... unsavory debaters in my time on other forums.
When people make a rather condescending comment, like, "You had to argue" accompanied with a smile or laugh, I make the assumption that they are laughing at me, based on those past experiences.
I felt you where accusing me of not knowing what I was talking about, so I defended myself from this accusation, be it real or perceived.
When people make a rather condescending comment, like, "You had to argue" accompanied with a smile or laugh, I make the assumption that they are laughing at me, based on those past experiences.
I felt you where accusing me of not knowing what I was talking about, so I defended myself from this accusation, be it real or perceived.
your among aspies. one of our symptoms is to unknowingly offend others by being short or abrupt ;]
*peace pipe?*
Yeah... I kind of realized that a little late...
I guess after so many other forums where smiles tend to be tools of ridicule, it may take a while to delete that defensive responce. But I must say, of the twelve forums I've been a member of, this is far and away this most civilized.
*peace pipe*
Great. now I have a nicotine addiction.
(that was a joke. just making sure)
back on topic, as far as non-dinosaurs go, the aquatic reptiles where all pretty cool. I'd also like to learn more about the planet's swamp ages, I forget the names, when the amphibians where the dominant class, but information on that era seems rather sparse...
09 Feb 2010, 9:42 pm
iamnotaparakeet
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Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Age: 38
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10 Feb 2010, 1:02 am
10 Feb 2010, 7:28 am
^^^
"according to some" by now its as much a fact as lions being felines, and wolves being canines ;]
bird skeletons are as good as indistinguishable from dinosaur skeletons, precisely because theres no way of drawing a line where dinosaur "ends" and bird "begins", its like watching an animation frame by frame
its not entirely linear either, a lot of bird-branches evolved and died out again as well, leaving a huge variation of dino/birds during the age of dinosaurs, some were more "dino like", with visible claws and teeth, others were small and sparrow-like, and if seen in real life, would probably look like any of todays small song-birds.
i used to love this fact so much as a kid, watching birds, and thinking that people always wonder what dinosaurs looked like. well, we have 9000 species of surviving dinosaurs ;D
the main adaptations that define birds are; fused skull, enlarged sternum, fused hands, fused pelvis, fused metatarsals and shortened tail. with the enormous variation seen allready in "non-avian" dinosaurs, these adaptations are minor.
for example, a parrots skeleton is a LOT more similar to a tyrannosaurus, than a stegosaurus could ever dream to be.
i find that many have a hard time accepting that birds are dinosaurs, cus to most the sentence gets "subconciously translated" as "birds are huge reptilian monsters", but its just like saying: "humans are mammals" "birds are dinosaurs" "crocodiles are reptiles"
iamnotaparakeet
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10 Feb 2010, 7:39 am
10 Feb 2010, 8:14 am
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
ZEGH8578 wrote:
"humans are mammals" "birds are dinosaurs" "crocodiles are reptiles"
Perhaps that's a correct assessment, that birds are in the same super-category as therapods in a similar manner to mice being in the same super-category as kangaroos. I don't consider them as having descended from dinosaurs, but perhaps they are of the same structural composition and have similar biochemical processes.
"descended from" = "same super-category"
its not very strange really, for example, a very common misconception is that birds come "directly" from velociraptor and its similar relatives, but birds were allready fully evolved at that time. there are even fossils of ducks and parrots from the cretaceous if im not mistaken, suggesting that bird families as we know them today, had allready evolved. proto-primates may also have existed this early on.
to put it simply, birds evolved from dinosaurs that were _allready_ small cute and fuzzy, so the transition was never as dramatic as the common "laymen" imagine it.
but in a way, yes, you get the "jist" of it. mice and kangaroos are both mammals. the sparrow and tyrannosaurus are both dinosaurs. the nile crocodile and cute little gecko are both lizards.
and it IS the structural composition that does point us to exactly that (what else would it be? ;] none of these animals tell us in words who they descend from, they dont even know
)
not to mention the abundance of bird-like features found on fossils that are clearly flight-less dinosaurs.
another thing people may have trouble understanding, is how this can be random, since evolution is always described as accidental and random. but people look at it the wrong way, they see birds as a "finished product" of sorts.
feathers existed long before flight, simply cus feathers were a reptilian "version" of fur, to cover the body. small predatory dinosaurs were two legged, a less effective structure for running fast, so another adaptation then became arm-feathers, that little by little grow longer and wider, in order to "smoothen" the body.
Arms were "folded" up against the body, in order to give the body a smooth arrow-shape.
by now you have two legged animals, fully feathered, with longer feathers on the arms, and allready folding the elbows in a wing-like fashion. the folding has been seen clearly in many in-situ fossils.
very small species, who are naturally light, would quickly benefit from feathers, for example holding their arms out, and slowing down a leap, making an effective leap very precise and easy to aim.
this fits well with evidence of tiny feathered gliding dinosaurs (such as rahonavis, or the famous "4-winged" microraptor, who had wing-feathers on its legs).
so, feathers for
1. insulation, then
2. speed, then
3. precision leaping, then
4. gliding, which then evolves into
5. controlled flight
at least thats the relatively common consensus of the matter, especially the "why" of it. why on earth did small dinosaurs end up flying.
10 Feb 2010, 8:22 am
12 Feb 2010, 2:14 am
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