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What KT extinction?
Updated: May 21, 2010
Additions/Comments:
 
See also: Lost Worlds of Dinosauria: A visual survey
 
The Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, which occurred approximately 65.5 million years ago, is widely known as the K–T extinction event where K is the traditional abbreviation for the Cretaceous Period derived from the German name "Kreidezeit", and T is the abbreviation for the Tertiary Period (a period of time now covered by the Paleogene and Neogene periods). Whatever the name, this event saw the large-scale mass extinction of approximately half of all animal and plant species in a geologically short period of time. It famously ended the "Age of Reptiles" because many of the archosaurs, a group of reptiles including the birds, crocodiles, pterosaurs and most notably, the dinosaurs, suddenly vanished from the fossil record. There have been hundreds of theories as to its cause with the most notable being those of an impact event or events, catastrophic volcanic activity, falling sea level or a combination of events.

dinosauroid hand
But what if the K-T extinction event had not occurred? How might dinosaurs and their allies have evolved? Below, in the best tradition of Dinosaur Central magpie-ing, we have cherry-picked the Internet and elsewhere for a collection of web and other material that explore this notion. These resources range from rational to the surrealistic; from the sober to the whimsical.
 

Contents

 
 

Non-fiction

 

"Sixty-five million years ago, the dinosaurs still ruled land and sea, as they had for more than 100 million years. Then a comet or asteroid struck our planet, wiping out 60 to 80 per cent of all species. Earth was unlucky to have been hit so late in its evolution. With no impact, the climate would have continued to evolve, species to rise and fall. Intelligence could have arisen, among birds or mammals, so they relied on brains rather than brute strength. One day, something similar to humans might have faced something like the dinosaurs..."

Stephen Baxter, "What If...?" BBC Focus #168 (September 2006)

 

My Pet Dinosaur
"Had dinosaurs survived, the world today would be very different. If humans managed to survive alongside them, we wouldn't have the company of most, if not all, of the mammals with which we are familiar today. Giraffes, elephants and other mammals wouldn't have had space to evolve."

Watch on YouTube

 
The New DinosaursThe New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution
A book written by geologist and palaeontologist Dougal Dixon. While Dixon's earlier book After Man is set fifty million years in the future, The New Dinosaurs speculates on how the dinosaurs would have evolved over the last 65 million years had the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event not taken place.
 

The New Dinosaurs: An alternative evolution
Very naughtily the whole book is available online.

Wikipedia: The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution

New Dinosaurs
A review by Darren Naish on the Dinosaur Mailing List.

Speculations on Dixon’s New Dinosaurs: Classifying The New Dinosaurs for Spec World
An essay Darren Naish has written that attempts to combine Dougal Dixon's book The New Dinosaurs with the more recent web work "Spec World" (see below).

Come back Lank, (nearly) all is forgiven
An blog entry by Darren Naish examining the plausibility of the Lank, an evolved hypothetical pterosaur from Dixon's The New Dinosaurs.

 
The Speculative Dinosaur Project
 
The Speculative Dinosaur Project ("Spec World")
A large and comprehensive website that catalogues the life of an alternative Earth where the KT extinction did not occur.
 

The World of Kong, A Natural History of Skull IslandThe World of Kong, A Natural History of Skull Island
Though King Kong is most appropriately of the "lost world" sub-genre this book, and its accompanying website are included here because unlike so many others of their kind Jackson's Kong is not a world frozen in time. This new millennium Skull Island has continued to evolve producing a vast array of highly derived and fantastical creatures. Written and illustrated by Weta Workshop's creative team, the same designers responsible for the movie's creatures, The World of Kong catalogues the amazing wildlife of King Kong's fictitious island home like a comprehensive field guide. Very definitely a work of fantasy but a compelling one.

 

The Bestiary: An Illustrated Guide to the Beasts of Skull IslandThe Bestiary: An Illustrated Guide to the Beasts of Skull Island
Part of the website created for Peter Jackson's 2005 version of King Kong. Select "The Bestiary" from Special Features to see a selection from the vast menagerie of animals created by the film makers.

 
Kong: King Of Skull IslandKong: King Of Skull Island
Joe DeVito (Author, Artist), Brad Strickland (Author)
In a way similar to Jackson's Kong, the dinosaurs of this lavishly illustrated novel have continued to evolve. These include the dromaeosaur "Slashers", the intelligent mega-theropod "Gaw" and a race of sentient dinosaurs, the Deathrunners.


Novels

 

War with the NewtsWar with the Newts
Karel Capek
Granddaddy of this genre and the titular creatures are first cousins to the dinosauroid. War with the Newts (Válka s mloky in the original Czech), also translated as War with the Salamanders, is a 1936 satirical science fiction story by Czech author Karel Capek. It concerns the discovery in the Pacific of a sea-dwelling race, the Newts, who are initially enslaved and exploited. They acquire human knowledge and rebel, leading to a global war for supremacy.

The complete text

Dinotopia: The Newt World Order

Wikipedia: The War with the Newts

Karel Capek - The War With The Newts

 

Eden TrilogyEden Trilogy
Harry Harrison
In a world where dinosaurs never went extinct, hunter-gatherer clans of humans live among the great beasts in North America, meanwhile, the Yilane, a race of intelligent, evolved mesosaurs, thrive in Africa an Europe. But when an oncoming ice age forces the cold-blooded Yilane to explore westward, they discover the humans and take a young boy named Kerrick back to Africa with them as their slave. The series chronicles the adventures of Kerrick who escapes his captors and comes to lead his people against the saurian threat from across the sea.

Wikipedia: West of Eden

Prehistoric Pulp: West of Eden

West of Eden: An Interview with Harry Harrison

 
Eden Trilogy
 

Quintaglio AscensionQuintaglio Ascension
Robert J. Sawyer
This series chronicles the lives of three Quintaglios, a race of intelligent dinosaurs evolved from dwarf tyrannosaurs—Afsan, the Quintaligo equivalent of Galileo; Toroca, the Quintaligo equivalent of Darwin; and Mokleb, the Quintaligo equivalent of Freud. Also known as the Quintaligo Ascension trilogy and comprising Far-Seer, Fossil Hunter and Foreigner.

Quintaglio
 
Second Summer: The Turnback TimeSecond Summer: The Turnback Time
Amelia Walsh and James Stambaugh
Planet Earth, reduced by global warming to an apocalyptic wilderness, finds its inhabitants decimated by a reawakened Mesozoic plague. Then, rising from millions of years of hibernation, a breed of reasoning dinosaurs, Troodons, enter what is left of a world devastated by the human species and plague.


Destroyermen SagaDestroyermen Saga
Tayor Anderson
Anderson’s outstanding first novel combines alternate history and seafaring. Two U.S. four-stacker destroyers on the run from the Japanese in the spring of 1942 sail into a mysterious squall. The USS Walker emerges upon an alternate earth, where the dinosaurs were never wiped out. One savage sapient race, the Grik, has evolved from the raptors; another, from lemurs. The latter becomes the allies of the castaways in parallel time, and together they prepare to fight the Grik, solve some of the mysteries of this world, and find the missing second destroyer.

Titles in the series included: Into the Storm: Destroyermen, Book I, Crusade: Destroyermen and Maelstrom: Destroyermen, Book III.



Charon's ArkCharon's Ark
Rick Gauger
To the teachers and students of Seattle’s Garfield High School, the trip was just a public relations lark – for helping a wealthy Pacific island open a science museum, they were to get a free trip around the world. It all seemed too easy. It was. As their chartered 747 crossed the Pacific, a huge spacecraft swooped down, cut off its wings, swallowed it up, and headed deep into outer space. Next stop: Charon, the moon of Pluto. They discover that Charon is a hollow sphere and was built by aliens as a nature preserve to save Earth’s dinosaurs.


The Rex seriesThe Rex series
Eric Garcia
In Eric Garcia's wild but winning first mystery, dinosaurs never did get wiped out--they evolved secretly and now make up about 5 percent of the world's population. There are dinosaur doctors, lawyers, even detectives like Rubio--although he's hit a low point in his own career because of the suspicious death of his beloved partner. This series comprises three titles: Anonymous Rex (1999), Casual Rex (2001) and Hot and Sweaty Rex (2004)


The Stones of Nomuru and The Venom Trees of Sunga
L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp
Kukulkan, a planet of the star Epsilon Eridani, is inhabited by intelligent dinosaur-like creatures possessed of a civilization far older than Earth's. Due to the natives' inherent conservatism and an environment deficient in fossil fuels, its technology has not advanced beyond edged weapons and steam-driven vehicles. The Kukulkanians, or "Kooks" as they are known among Terrans, are honest, honor-bound, and dull in personality. These two books are book eleven and twelve in the authors the tenth book Viagens Interplanetarias series. See also the Osirians.



The People of the Pole
Charles Derennes
The North Pole Kingdom is a country under the Arctic, inhabited by civilized dinosaurs. It consists of a maze of underground tunnels with several exits onto the icy wastes. The dinosaur society is carefully organized and all members have specific occupations. The main job is to watch over huge machines that transform the North Pole’s electromagnetic energy into heat and light. The workers responsible for this task are accompanied by younger apprentices.  Should a worker neglect his duties, the apprentice takes over immediately and the worker is driven to the slaughterhouse. The dinosaurs dress in a sort of overall made out of sealskin. Their faces are like those of giant lizards and betray no emotions.


Fallen Cloud SagaFallen Cloud Saga
Kurt R.A. Giambastian
A series of four books, including The Year the Cloud Fell, The Spirit of Thunder, Shadow of the Storm, and From the Heart of the Storm chronicling an alternative world in which North American geography includes a large gulf where Texas should be, and some species of dinosaurs surviving to modern time.


The HomecomingThe Homecoming
Barry B. Longyear
After 70 million star cycles, the Nitolans' star fleet returns to its beloved planet, only to find that its name is now Earth and its dominant race has evolved from what the dinosaur-like Nitolans knew as a kind of edible tree squirrel.


Dinosaur WarsDinosaur Wars
Thomas P. Hopp
Dinosaurs are not extinct. Wildlife biologist Chase Armstrong and rancher’s daughter Kit Daniels are swept into an epic struggle when a species of intelligent, human-sized dinosaur returns from outer space to reclaim its home world —our world! The invaders bring with them all the great beasts of the Cretaceous Era. A sequel, Dinosaur Wars: Counterattack followed.
 


Short fiction

 

"Dinosaur on a Bicycle""Dinosaur on a Bicycle"
Tim Sullivan
In an alternate universe where intelligent dinosaurs dominate the earth, a 19th-century dinosaur scientist sends his assistant back to the Cretaceous Era to visit their relatives. He meets up with a couple of time-traveling humans from another alternate universe and has some interesting adventures with the female after the man is eaten by a T-rex. They eventually discover a Nexus of Realities where they meet up with intelligent, time-traveling monkeys, raccoons, dogs, cats, lobsters, fish, cockroaches, rats, etc.


"The Runners"
Bob Buckley
An expedition into the Cretaceous that discovers intelligent tool-using dinosaurs set out to save the species from an impeding supernova explosion. A short story found in the anthology Dinosaurs! edited by Brian W. Aldiss.

Complete text



"Foster Mother""Foster Mother"
Carol Emshwiller
A woman in an isolated mountain region raises an infant dinosauroid to be a weapon, but forms an emotional bond with it that leads her to question whether or not she'll be able to give up custody of her foster child. A short story found in Report to the Men's Club and Other Stories.


"Obsidian Harvest"
Rick Cook and Ernest Hogan
Set in a world where the Aztec Empire never fell and dinosaurs can still be found in South America. Published in Analog, April 2000.


"One Giant Step"
John E. Stith
In an alternate future, the super-intelligent descendants of the dinosaurs invent time travel. So they travel back in time 65 million years to meet their dinosaur ancestors. “That’s one small step for a reptile, one giant step for Reptilia.” But one of the three travelers, Ektor, has smuggled back some bombs, which he uses to wipe out all his own ancestors, because of all the suffering and mass extinction of other species the reptile overlords have caused. “Reptiles were not meant to rule the Earth… let some other species take over,” he announces before detonating. As result, insects develop intelligence and go back 65 million years.
Published: In Dinosaur Fantastic (eds. Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg), DAW 1993 and SFBC 1994.


"Trembling Earth""Trembling Earth"
Allen Steele
A presidential candidate's visit to the dinosaur-inhabited Okafenokee wildlife refuge goes terribly wrong, and the details are revealed as the survivors explain their harrowing experience to a committee. Included in the anthology Dinosaurs II edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois.


"Gator""Gator"
Robert J. Sawyer
When a sewer worker in New York City is bitten by something in the sewers, Dr. David Ludlam makes a startling discovery about what's lurking beneath the city. Included in the anthology Unnatural Selection: A Collection of Darwinian Nightmares edited by Gord Rollo.

Complete text

 

 

Television

 
DinosapienDinosapien
A British/Canadian children's television program that focuses on what would happen if dinosaurs had continued to exist and evolve into more intelligent beings.


Dino-RampageDino-Rampage
The Dino-rampage series is a 3D animated series depicting the coexistence of dinosaurs with human beings in future time.


Other

 

Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus RexDinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex
Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex is a science fiction world setting. The basic premise is that the Civil War did not end as we know it, but resulted in separate Federal and Confederate nations. This state continued into the space age. In the year 2202, an alien planet full of dinosaurs was discovered, opening new mysteries and establishing the world of Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex.

And in a similar vein...

 
Professor Cline's Dinosaur Kingdom
The roadside attraction features an alternate version of the American Civil War where the Union army was armed with dinosaurs.
 
Professor Cline's Dinosaur Kingdom

 

Interlude 1:
What is it with dinosaurs and the Wild West?

 
The Last Dinosaur Book The Valley of Gwangi
   
Diamond Gulch Brocosaurus rex
   
The Beast of Hollow Mountain Cowboy riding dinosaur
  Hexxenhammer
   
Cowboy riding dinosaurs 2 Bucking Trike
Sculptor: John Lopez | Photo: Jurassiraptor Travis Hanson
   
Civil War dinosaur Bone sharps, Cowboys and Thunderlizards
Deb Goodrich  
Roping dinosaur by Bill Stout
Bill Stout
 

 

The Dinosauroid

 
Dinosauroid Shaman
Dinosauroid Shaman
by Thomas M. Miller

Articles
 
Anthroposaurus Sapiens
The article argues the case that some dinosaurs may have got to be really brainy – to the point of hominid intelligence.
 
Dinos on the Moon
Report on a presentation by NASA scientist Chris McKay who suggests that we dig for dinosaur relics on the moon at a recent SETI conference.
 
Captain Raptor and the Moon Mystery
 
Troodon: Sentient Dinosaur?
Poses some questions of Russel's notion of a dinosauroid.
 
DeviantArtist: Dinosauroids
DeviantART artists explore the dinosauroid: nemo-ramjet and povorot (Simon Roy)

 

A gallery

 
Avisapiens saurotheos
Avisapiens saurotheos by Simon Roy
"Products of primate chauvinism, the current models of erect, humanoid sentient dinosaurs are hopelessly wrong, With a horizontally slung body and dexterous beak as the prime manipulator, Avisapiens saurotheos is a more feasible sophont, proudly bearing the hallmarks of is archosaurian ancestory."
 
Bioraptor macloughlini Simon Roy's dinosauroid
Bioraptor macloughlini by John McLoughlin

Simon Roy's dinosauroid

   
Dale Russell's Dinosauroid Crawley Creatures' Dinosauroid
Dale Russell's "Thought experiment" Crawley Creatures Ltd.
 
Dinosauroids revisited
A blog entry by Darren Naish examining the "dinosauroid" or humanoid dinosaur idea.
 
Forget K-T
Some visual musings by Simon Roy on speculative dinosaurs: what would have happened evolutionarily had the Cretaceous extinction not happened... or rather, that Chicxulub had never struck Mexico.

 

Interlude 2:
A checklist of dinosauroids and their kin in fiction

       
Creature
Title
Author
Year
 
"Aquatic anthropoids" In the Abyss H. G. Wells 1896
Urd ("Lizard-men")
1930
Newt or Salamander The War with the Newts Karel Capek 1936
"Amphibious humanoids" The Horror in the Telescope Edmond Hamilton 1938
Zarz Out of the Depths H. L. Gold 1940
"Big Snakes" King of the Dinosaurs Raymond A. Palmer 1945
Osirians Summer Wear and Git Along! L. Sprague de Camp 1950
 
Sha'akhfa Viagens Interplanetarias L. Sprague de Camp 1953
Lithian A Case of Conscience James Blish 1958
Homo reptilia (Silurian, Morka, Okdel and K'to) Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters Malcolm Hulke 1974
1977
Salamen Wildblood's Empire Brian Stableford 1977
Homosaurus
Hermes to the Ages
Frederick D. Gottfried
1980
1984
Evolved troodontids The Homecoming Barry B. Longyear  
Quintaglios Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy Robert J. Sawyer 1987
Kukulkan The Stones of Nomuru L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp 1988
 
Nitolan The Homecoming Barry Longyear 1989
 
Clan-Ru Star Trek: First Frontier Diane Carey and Dr. James Kirkland 1995
1995
Unnamed
Wrench and Claw
1998
Dr. Thomas P. Hopp
2000
Unnamed
Terrible Lizards of Luna
2000
Deathrunners Kong: King Of Skull Island Joe DeVito and Brad Strickland 2004
       
The Troodons
Amelia Walsh
2006
Taylor Anderson
2006
       

 
How intelligent dinosaurs conquered the world
Another blog entry by Darren Naish drawing attention to the smart theropods invented by John McLoughlin and Mike Magee.
 
Dinosauroid cave art discovered
Darren Naish's notion of what a "real" dinosauroid might look like has inspired blogger Nemo Ramjet to produce Avisapiens saurotheos, a post-Cretaceous big-brained maniraptoran. On a parallel Earth where theropod dinosaurs have followed a similar evolutionary path to hominids, this is the result.
 

DinosauroidsSmartasaurus
An article in Cosmos magazine considering the question that if they hadn't been wiped out in a global catastrophe 65 million years ago, could dinosaurs have evolved intelligence?

 
Troodon sapiens?: Thoughts on the "Dinosauroid"
By Brian Switek, an ecology and evolution student at Rutgers University.
 
Dino Friday Repost: Dinosauroids!
At his Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs blogsite David Orr reflects on Dale Russell's dinosauroid thought experiment.
 
Dinosauroids!
Robot Blood examines the dinosauroid notion.
 
DeviantART: Anthro-Reptiles
A gallery of human-like reptilian art work.
 
Television Tropes and Idioms: Lizard Folk
Reptilian Humanoids animation, comics, literature, live action TV, film and games.
 

 

Interlude 3:
"Dinosauroids" from filmed fiction

 
  The Creature from the Black Lagoon's Gillman  
  Gillman
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
Devonian granddaddy to the dinosauroid.
 
 
20 Million Miles to Earth's Ymir It! The Terror from Beyond Space' Martian
Laserblast Alien
Ymir
20 Million Miles to Earth
Sulfur-munching Venusian.
Martian
It! The Terror from Beyond Space
Homocidal alien stowaway.
Laserblast Alien
Laserblast
Gun-toting aliens with a strange squawking speech.
 
Star Trek Voyager' Voth Dr Who's Silurian Land of the Lost's Sleestak
Voth
Star Trek Voyager
Sentient race of space-faring dinosaurs.

Common Origin Theory: Development of Sentient Reptilian Life
Silurian
Dr Who
Developed intelligence in Earth's prehistory.
Sleestak
Land of the Lost
Race of intelligent reptilian humanoids that evolved alongside surviving dinosaurs.
     
Starwar's Trandoshan Star Trek: The Next Generation's Gorn Babylon 5's Drazi
Trandoshan
Star Wars
Large, reptilian humanoids from the planet Trandosha.
Gorn
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Intelligent reptilian humanoid aliens.
Drazi
Babylon 5
Humanoid reptilians in appearance, with green or bluish skin, and thick skull bones.
     
V's Sirian Enemy Mine's Draconian Galaxy Quest's Fatu-Krey
Sirian
V
Aliens (a.k.a. The Visitors) from Sirius IV.
Draconian
Enemy Mine
Race of hermaphroditic aliens.
Fatu-Krey
Galaxy Quest
Vicious race that exterminates others for its own entertainment.

 
Dinosauroid