If Dinosaurs roamed the earth today...

[Phlosphr]

Ok off the cuff, there is a place near where I live called Dinosaur Crossing (http://www.dinosaurcrossing.com/#) where they have exact scale models of a variety of different dinosaurs set in an environment where people can walk among them.

I just got back from the park with my 5 year old nephew, and I was thinking: What if dinosaurs roamed the earth now in 2005? What would some of the inherent problems be? What could people seriously do about protecting themselves? Could the dinos be domesticated in some way? Would more people own high powered guns?

I know I'm bored right now, but the thought of watching a pod of brontosaurus eat the tops of trees fascinates that inner child in me for sure!

[Grey]

I'm pretty sure that unleashed pets would no longer be a problem.

[Ephemera]

All I know is that I would want a pet ankylosaurus.

[bup]

Farmers would hate them.

I imagine some of the smarter, relatively nonviolent species would have been domesticated like elephants have to do heavy grunt work.

Every once in a while they'd stop, look at the camera and say, "Ehh, it's a livin'."

[archmichael]

They would be hunted to extinction because of Chinese Herbal Medicine. If tiger penis powder is supposed to be an aphrodisiac, just imagine what tyranosaurus rex penis powder would bring on the black market.

The phrase, "Why would any hunter need an assault rifle?" could not be used in gun debates.

The running of the Triceratops in Pamplona would have record number of deaths this year

[bup]

Oh, yeah, they'd be involved in corporate malfeasance (http://grimbles.keenspace.com/d/20011011.html).

[Silver Serpentine]

If T Rex and such were still roaming around, I doubt we'd've devloped culturally the way we did. I mean, imagine the small tribes that started us off - it'd be like a buffet to a Rex. We might have had to remain in nomadic tribes to keep out of the way of the large predators.

I mean, try fighting off a Rex with a spear. I can't imagine that ancient people would be able to build fortifications stong enough to keep out a Rex quickly enough that the settled tribe wouldn't be raided as a snack bar.

But it's all just speculation.

[Try As I Might...]

If dinosaurs roamed the Earth today...









Jeff Goldbloom would still be obnoxious. Why didn't he get chomped by the T-Rex ;)

(Sorry, I don't know why that popped in my head.)

[Can Handle the Truth]

If dinosaurs had never gone extinct, mammals would never have had a chance to take over the world like they have. Mammals and dinosaurs appeared at about the same time at the beginning of the Triassic period, but mammals never grew above the size of a possum until the dinosaurs were extinct. To me this says they couldn't compete. And right after the dinosaurs left, it was the "Age of Giant Birds" for a few million years. Only after that did the mammals take over.

[vetbridge]

Imagine the cool boots....

[vetbridge]

Belts and wallets also. Caps as well.

[Harborwolf]

I'd enjoy taking my protoceratops for a walk every morning.

[Tentacle Monster]

It wouldn't be pleasant. Two words: apatosaurus farts.

[enipla]

Forget the assault weapon, they're less powerful than most hunting rifles.

Most hunting rifles would not make a dent in a 3-10 ton animal.

What would have happend, IF, dinosaurs and people actually managed to evole together?

Today, humans would be able to run REALLY, REALLY fast.

[Llama Llogophile]

I often think about this when I'm walking the trails near my house. No kidding!

I imagine I'm walking along when suddenly a T-Rex breaks through the tree canopy and leers at me menacingly. What a hassle that would be - having to worry about super-predators every time you went for a walk.

[Sengkelat]

But...dinosaurs do roam the earth. It's just that they've got feathers and we call them birds.

All that aside, though, if non-avian dinosaurs were around today...I'd be one happy puppy.

[astro]

Man... for such a fab concept and execution it's got a pathetic website (http://www.dinosaurcrossing.com/#). Hardly a dinosaur pic on it.

[carnivorousplant]

Phasers would not have a stun setting, Just In Case.

[Odinoneeye]

You'd see a bunch of tree-hugging hippie types wearing shirts saying "Save the Pleisiosaurus"

[detop]

All I know is that I would want a pet ankylosaurus.

It would give a new meaning to the phrase "Curb your pet" :D

[OtakuLoki]

This (http://www.dinosaurbarbque.com/) would be a national, not local, restaurant chain. :D

[Phlosphr]

Man... for such a fab concept and execution it's got a pathetic website (http://www.dinosaurcrossing.com/#). Hardly a dinosaur pic on it.
I know, I was thinking that as well. But I'll tell you one thing, the park itself is amazing. The owner is just this independently wealthy rock collector, that had several full scale model dinos made and placed around the park.

[Scumpup]

I think we'd simply have dealt with most of them the way we dealt with roughly equivalent animals with whom we did coexist. Our ancestors coexisted with elephants, buffalo, hippos, rhinos and other large, often ill-tempered herbivores. One assumes the same basic survival strategies could be applied to surviving amongst large, often ill-tempered dinos.
Similarly, our ancestors survived in a world with lions, tigers and bears (don't say it!),not to mention wolves, crocodiles and other carnivores large enough to consume humans. The smaller carnosaurs, I'll conjecture, would have been handled in ways similar to how they handled the above.
When you get to something as big as a full-grown T-Rex, I guess you'd have to develop some new strategies. On the plus side, something that big probably favored a relatively open environment and didn't move with any great degree of stealth. One supposes our ancestors would have adopted a policy of killing them as juveniles whenever possible, nest raiding (omelets tonight!), and avoiding the adults. End result: our primitive ancestors would have rendered T-Rex extinct and people would whine about it today.

[Darwin's Finch]

If dinosaurs roamed the Earth today....

I wouldn't be making the following nitpicks:

1) Plesiosaurus wasn't a dinosaur.
2) "Carnosaur" is not synonymous with "theropod". Carnosaur, as a taxon, specifically refers to allosaurid theropods (e.g., Allosaurus), and excludes most of the more well-known fellows - like T. rex and the so-called "raptors" (dromaeosaurid dinos, like Velociraptor).
3) None of the species we are most familiar with as fossils would be around. Some genera might continue, but none of the included species would have lasted for the intervening 65 million years (the typical "lifespan" of a species tends to be more on the order of about 10 million years). And many lineages would likely still have gone extinct. So we'd have all new dinos to worry about.

[JohnBckWLD]

Eiji Tsuburaya and Tomoyuki Tanaka wouldn't have as much yen in the bank.

[Agrippina]

Bea Arthur would fight with them (http://www.brandonbird.com/bea.html).

[umop ap!sdn]

As it is, we have plenty of big mammals but they tend to stay away from those pesky humans and the weird noises and contraptions they make. I think we could still have the cities all to ourselves, save such minor nuisances as having to chase little compsognathids away from our dumpsters.

A pet thyreophoran or ceratopsian would be a big no-no. Surely there would be residential laws that expressly forbid it.

Carnosaur, as a taxon, specifically refers to allosaurid theropods (e.g., Allosaurus), and excludes most of the more well-known fellows - like T. rex and the so-called "raptors" (dromaeosaurid dinos, like Velociraptor).

Oh yeah - aren't the tyrannosaurids now classified as coelurosaurs? Seems counter intuitive when you're used to dividing the theropods into big and little. :D

[Darwin's Finch]

Oh yeah - aren't the tyrannosaurids now classified as coelurosaurs?

Yup - coelurosaurs and carnosaurs are sister groups (within Avetheropoda), though.

[bup]

This seems somehow relevant (http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/01/12/belly.of.the.best.ap/index.html). Our distant ancestors were already wailin' on 'em, apparently.

[KJ]

Am I the only one who thinks it would be really cool to see what different types of dinosaur meat would taste like?

[carnivorousplant]

what different types of dinosaur meat would taste like?

Chicken.

[Tuckerfan]

Well, we wouldn't be worried about running out of oil any time soon. ;)

The cool thing is that all of us would probably be "playing" with rocket launchers, since most rifles would be pop guns to dinos. :cool:

[ccwaterback]

No one would go to Japanese horror movies because they could just look out in their back yard for the same effect. :)

[FriendRob]

Beautiful, archmichael, beautiful!

[Anaamika]

All I know is that I would want a pet ankylosaurus.

Triceratops! Pet triceratops!

(My favorite dino as a child).

[kunilou]

Animal shelters would have a lot more interesting strays for us to choose from.

No parent would ever fall for "I promise I'll take care of it myself"

Letterman's "Stupid Pet Tricks" would eventually involve the Army and gisnt electric grids.

Fred Flintstone would be employable once again. Unfortunately, Ray Harryhousen would have wound up doing Gumby.

My Little Camelosaurus

The Mary Tyler Moore Show epsiode "Chuckles Bites the Dust" would have a lot more gravitas.

The other white meat

[justwannano]

A Pooper scooper would have a completely different look.

[ExTank]

The "Pooper Scooper" by Caterpillar Tractor. Also good for digging basements and moving earth tons at a time.

Up-Armored HUMVEEs with TOW Missile Launchers on top would be a common sight on the morning commute.

The issue over pet Rotts and Pit Bulls would get scant press compared to the pet Raptor issue.

[ElvisL1ves]

You really could get a rack of ribs delivered to your car at Bronto Burger.


How would you drop a charging ankylosaur, anyway? An RPG?

[carnivorousplant]

How would you drop a charging ankylosaur, anyway? An RPG?

More importantly, who would clean up?

[Rufus Xavier]

"Dinosaur Crossing" looks an awful lot like a place in Virginia I went to in 1978 called "Dinosaurland."


As to the OP, I doubt there would be much surfing. What with the mososaurs and all.

A day in the life of a mososaur (http://www.oceansofkansas.com/mosa-sty.html)

[archmichael]

Mososaur, pffff. Megalodon! A 50 foot frickin shark (unknown if they had frickin laser beams on their heads)

Since there actually would be monsters in Loch Ness, would they have to come up with more obscure extinct monsters to draw the tourists? "Fact or Fiction: The trilobite of Loch Ness" Only on the Discovery Channel

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Animal shelters would have a lot more interesting strays for us to choose from.
No fewer, due to fewer stray dogs & cats. 'Cause dinos don't leave leftovers. ;)



The Mary Tyler Moore Show epsiode "Chuckles Bites the Dust" would have a lot more gravitas.

The other white meat

Yes, give an Allosaurus or two, Mary would have become the "Other White Meat". But it isn't nice to say so. :D

[Jonathan Chance]

I think we'd simply have dealt with most of them the way we dealt with roughly equivalent animals with whom we did coexist. Our ancestors coexisted with elephants, buffalo, hippos, rhinos and other large, often ill-tempered herbivores. One assumes the same basic survival strategies could be applied to surviving amongst large, often ill-tempered dinos.
Similarly, our ancestors survived in a world with lions, tigers and bears (don't say it!),not to mention wolves, crocodiles and other carnivores large enough to consume humans. The smaller carnosaurs, I'll conjecture, would have been handled in ways similar to how they handled the above.
When you get to something as big as a full-grown T-Rex, I guess you'd have to develop some new strategies. On the plus side, something that big probably favored a relatively open environment and didn't move with any great degree of stealth. One supposes our ancestors would have adopted a policy of killing them as juveniles whenever possible, nest raiding (omelets tonight!), and avoiding the adults. End result: our primitive ancestors would have rendered T-Rex extinct and people would whine about it today.

Yeah, I've got to back this one up. Our ancestors (presuming we evolved at all) would have dealt with them as they dealt with all survival threats...they would have either scared the hell out of the dinosaurs or, if they weren't smart enough to get scared as a species, we'd have made them extinct ourselves.

Never underestimate the monkey-boys, guys.

[carnivorousplant]

they would have either scared the hell out of the dinosaurs

Nah, I see two possible adaptations:

The big guys pick the little guy up, throw him at the dino and run, or

The little guy tells the big guy, "You're a wimp and that dino can beat your ass!" and he runs.

[Scuba_Ben]

Would any of the (non-predator, non-scavenger) dinosaurs have evolved into ruminants (cud-chewers) with fully cloven hooves?

Mmmm, Glatt Kosher neoapatosaurus burgers. ;j

[ITR champion]

The entire dynamics of prehistoric tribes would have changed. One brontosaurus would provide sufficient meat for thousands for many months, I assume, so people would have gathered in much larger tribes.

Michael Crichton would write the bestseller Triassic Park, about a rich crackpot who foolishly clones thecodonts from the blood of a fossilized mosquito and turns them loose on an island off of Costa Rica, with predictably disasterous results.

[Darwin's Finch]

As to the OP, I doubt there would be much surfing. What with the mososaurs and all.

Mosasaurs weren't dinosaurs , either (and neither were ichthyosaurs or megalodons, for that matter...).

[bup]

Mosasaurs weren't dinosaurs , either (and neither were ichthyosaurs or megalodons, for that matter...).
Well, yeah, but if dinosaurs survived, we're positing that icthyosaurs, pteradons, etc., would've.

[Tuckerfan]

Well, yeah, but if dinosaurs survived, we're positing that icthyosaurs, pteradons, etc., would've.
Yeah, it's not like they could have evolved into something else, or anything. ;)

[rjung]

What, nobody's suggested any military uses?

Forget the infantry, unleash the T-rex herd!

[SteveG1]

Hmmmm

Dinosaurs, giant birds, where to begin?

Giant birds first. Colonel Sanders would have red and white pickup trucks instead of buckets. A drumstick would feed a family of 20. I would go broke buying chickosaurus food, and I would have to buy the coop from a realtor :D

Dinosaurs. Who the hell is gonna clean the litter box now? Raptors would dominate track and field. A T Rex would still never win at Pro Bowling. Rodeos would be really scary. Instead of just being kicked gored and stomped, riders would get eaten. :eek:

The .458 magnum would be considered a small calibre round.