4 ms·
This may sound like nitpicking, but it isn't: the dinos have survived. All birds are dinosaurs. In fact, birds are extremely closely related to the dinosaurs th
by DCKing 7y ago
This may sound like nitpicking, but it isn't: the dinos have survived. All birds are dinosaurs. In fact, birds are extremely closely related to the dinosaurs that were long conjectured to have the highest cognitive abilities [1].
Some birds arguably have higher intelligence and form complex societies. But it was the primate group that developed the "most complex" society. This despite the fact that birds like primates are visually oriented, highly vocalized, take extensive care of their young, and many are already adopted to live in complex societies. It could be that the manual dexterity of primates, as well as the mammalian gestation period ('pregnancy') and its ability to have more developed children at birth could be further required factors that led to societies of human complexity.
You never know what 65 million years of uninterrupted evolution would have produced, but based on the way birds evolved I don't believe we would have had a dinosaur Hacker News in this alternate history.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troodontidae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troodontidae
- paulie_a 7y agoA talking bird can teach other birds to talk. But those birds can't teach others to talk Maybe not a fact but Macaws click their talons much like a dino, atleast in the way the Dino's were presented in Jurassic Park. But they do the head bobbing motion too. A talking bird can have a sense of humor. My macaw would call the dog to the cage. Throw food at him and then laugh. Sometimes in a British accent. I have no idea where that came from. And they are pretty territorial. I have a scar to prove it. Granted this is mostly anecdotal from having a macaw for thirty years
- kittiepryde 7y agoIf the event didn't occur, dinosaurs may not have all just become birds. The evolution of the animal eco system would have been very different -- but maybe still reaching the same result.
- DCKing 7y ago> If the event didn't occur, dinosaurs may not have all just become birds. I'm not trying to suggest that. I'm just saying that we don't know enough, but that based on the limited things we do know (birds never got to primate level societal complexity), we can hypothesize that dinosaurs would never have made it. It could well be that some other dinosaur subfamily could have taken a turn towards becoming a complex society, but I wouldn't have bet on the ankylosaurs, the sauropods or the ornithopods either for this.