Taylor Anderson has a really good series,starts with “Into the Storm” Lemurs are intelligent,as are the Dinos
Between climate changes and changes in our atmosphere, I’m seriously doubting they would have made it. Our evolution may have been slower or followed a different path (possibly even reptilian) but I’m not seeing much of a sapient species growing up with dinosaurs.
Right. It’s better to say that Torosaurus never existed. The Triceratops name was coined in 1889, and Torosaurus in 1891. So if both are the same genus, Triceratops (unless you’re a Cope fan and want to call it Agathaumas).
Humans already had some dangerous predators like giant bears, lions (which lived almost everywhere), saber toothed tigers, terror birds, wolves, and others. Humans also learned to hunt large and dangerous mammals like the woolly mammoth.
I think humans would have figured out an easy way to kill off dinosaurs would be to simply destroy or eat their eggs.
So I think humans over time would have killed off the dinosaurs anyways or turned them into beasts of burden.
Really big animals are really specialized, and if their niche environment goes bad, its tits up for them. I’m rather amazed that the really large whales have made it, but they seem to have a cooperative hunting advantage, be it krill or seals, that perhaps their ancient counterparts did not have.
Smaller versions of life from that era survived in birds, crocodiles, and those pesky mammals.
Personally I think some dinos did survive albeit few in numbers and in remote areas, until a few thousand years ago. That is where we get the legends of dragons and other large “monsters”.
But like any other large animal and especially anything remotely dangerous. Humans will band together and take great pride in killing such animals. I imagine the head of a raptor would be a major trophy on the wall of say a Roman general or early Mongol warlord. That is why they hunted lions all over the middle east and europe until they were all gone and why hunting grizzly bears became common until they were nearly extinct. You see the same in modern day hunting safaris to kill elephants and rhinos.
Legends of dragons and other large monsters are adequately explained by the bones of megafauna. No need to resort to dinosaurs surviving until a few thousand years ago. Anyway, if some had survived in the manner you describe it wouldn’t be the giant sort that might inspire tales of dragons. Larger creatures and much less adaptable than small ones.
Wow started to write the same response I already gave five years ago before I noticed I already gave it.