LJV: with respect, you're totally missing the point⦠this being that troodontids were so bird-like to begin with that there just isn't any reason to think that they might somehow have evolved an ape-like or human-like shape. As I've said on many occasions, we owe our body shape to our specific evolutionary history. If big brains, sentience and tool use were to evolve in bipedal maniraptoran dinosaurs, it's wise to assume that they would have remained bipedal maniraptoran dinosaurs. You're assuming that the human route is the 'best' one to follow; I think that's arguable and not likely correct [PS - same comment posted at ver 1]. The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it. Hell ain't half full. Hear me. Ye carry war of a madman's making onto a foreign land. Ye'll wake more than the dogs. I also don't like the use fo the name 'hobbit' for 'Homo floresiensis', which remains an unproven taxon as far as I am concerned. At the moment the jury is out until we have substantially more material, but it seems to me the best fit with the overall evidence is that poor little 'Ebu' (LB1) was probably an abberrent individual in a population of either pygmy Homo sapiens or pygmy Homo erectus. But if you want dinosaur survival may I recommend the series of books by Eric Garcia - "Anonymous Rex", "Casual Rex" and "Hot and Sweaty Rex". These "crinoids" were carnivores. It's a good question why Lovecraft refered to them as "crinoid", because to the extent they resemble real echinoderms at all they're more like asterozoans. Volant amphibian asterozoans.

Because he is a special kind of keeper. A suzerain rules even where there are other rulers. His authority countermands local judgments. [...] As a side issue, which seems kind of pressing for the topic discussed above and some of the arguments made: Magee, M. 1993. Who Lies Sleeping: the Dinosaur Heritage and the Extinction of Man. AskWhy! Publications, Frome. If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day. He loves games? Let him play for stakes. This you see here, these ruins wondered at by tribes of savages, do you not think that this will be again? Aye. And again. With other people, with other sons. The Faceless Man, wanted for multiple counts of murder, fraud, and crimes against humanity, has been unmasked and is on the run. Peter Grant, Detective Constable and apprentice wizard, now plays a key role in an unprecedented joint operation to bring him to justice.So, i don't yet SEE any good argument for the human plan being so superior to the theropod architecture that a "dinosauroid" would have to evolve toward it. Thanks, StupendousMan! What a cornucopia of empirical numbers, and of references. I like that there are exactly 100 of the latter, another example of one of those suspicious numbers. Re parrots' brains... yes, their brain-to-body-mass ratios are high, but, well, they're pretty small overall. There's probably an absolute size (or at least number of neurons) as well as relative size needed for intelligence. I mean, put a human brain in something the size of Amphicoelias, and its brain-to-body-mass ratio would be tiny, but it would still be as intelligent as a human.

Much has been made of this issue before. Wayne Barlowe did influence me greatly and I won't deny that "Expedition" directly led me into the world of speculative zoology, like many other people. As reactive as I can be to seeing something that (to me ) seems scoffed. I apologize for my bad manners will now sew my fingers together inhibit any more typing. I will try and learn from this for the future.Which is a better 'plan'? Well, to become a world-dominating, tool-user, higher-thinker, clearly the human one is.

Hey Darren. I can understand your argument, but really don't agree! You make a great case for us having a civilisation while being physiologically still like Chimpanzees, like our ancestors were. But we aren't. We are talking convergent evolution here, into a form like modern humans. That is the argument. Following your argument, WE WOULD NOT LOOK LIKE WE DO NOW. But we do. And--I refer to my earlier comment. Troodontids were not birds. They were very bird-like, but they were their own form, and doing very well, while another relative of their's became what we now now as birds. Why would they have evolved to look like birds as we know them? It's wrong! (No offense!) For one, tree-dwelling dinosaurs would probably look more like tree-kangaroos or birds then monkeys or apes - making that hominid-style body-plan a lot less likely.I am actually more interested in the fervour with which so many people want to believe 'Homo floresiensis' is a valid separate species of human - some appear to want to believe because they just love the idea, others seem from their comments to have anti-religious ideas (though this seems to be more that it doesn't fit with their idea of how theology should be, rather than it actually being a problem for any religious belief).