Learn and Explore

[Jordan Mallon, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Palaeobiology, Canadian Museum of Nature]  Have you ever wondered what would have happened if the dinosaurs didn’t go extinct 66 million years ago?

[Opening animation: Naturally Weird & Wonderful] 

[Narrator] When the Chicxulub meteorite hit our planet, it drastically altered the course of life on Earth.

But what if the meteorite had missed our planet, and the dinosaurs had been allowed to evolve undisturbed?

Dale Russell, former paleontologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, was fascinated by the idea of the evolution of intelligence in dinosaurs.

This concept of interrupted evolution was at the heart of a controversial thought experiment that took the world of palaeontology by storm in the early 1980’s.

[Jordan Mallon, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Palaeobiology, Canadian Museum of Nature] Dale Russell was endlessly curious. When he became interested in a topic, he had to know all about it, from the outside in, frontwards and backwards.

Dale started with the museum back in 1965, and soon after he started thinking about dinosaur intelligence.

In 1968, he was shown the braincase of a small meat-eating dinosaur called Troodon in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta.

When Dale examined the braincase, he noticed that the brain was relatively large—about the size of that of an ostrich.

At the time, scientists thought dinosaurs were small-brained and dim-witted like most lizards.

But the braincase of Troodon showed that that wasn’t true of all dinosaurs.

[Peter Dodson, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Paleontology and Veterinary Anatomy, University of Pennsylvania] Dale was the first one to make a case that some dinosaurs, particularly small theropod dinosaurs, like Stenonychosaurus as we called it then—I guess it’s Troodon today—was in fact very brainy.

Seven times more brainy than an alligator of the equivalent body size. Or more or less as brainy as a bird.

[Jordan Mallon] When Dale described the skeleton of this dinosaur, there were a number of features that stood out to him, including the relatively big brain, the large eyes, the bipedal stance, and what he thought was an opposable thumb. All these are features that we associate with intelligent animals today.

This eventually led Dale to wonder: What if Troodon didn’t go extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period?

How might its evolution have continued for the next 66 million years?

[Narrator] In the early 1980’s, Dale Russell published a paper about his theory and starting working with taxidermist and model maker, Ron Séguin, to produce models of Troodon and its evolved form: the dinosauroid.

[Ron Séguin, Taxidermist and Model Maker]  Having done the Troodon model with him, we then proceeded to apply Dale’s interpretation of what would happen in the process of evolution.

There was no aim to make it human-like.

He was simply applying the processes that he understood were necessary in the evolutionary process.

So if you’re not chasing small critters, then you don’t need the long neck.

So as you don’t need the long neck, because you’ve changed your food source, you also don’t need a long tail to counterbalance as you’re trying to chase these things down.

And in the case of the brain case, the process of an enlarged brain, had it had 65 million years to accomplish this, would have evolved in a bigger brain case as you see in humans.

[On-screen text: Excerpt from Paleoworld: Troodon: Dinosaur Genius] The eyes are focused more directly toward the front than they are in the dinosaur so it probably would have had stereoscopic vision, as we happen to. The face is shortened.

It has hands which it uses as tools and feeding devices rather than a jaw.

The backbone is vertical. The pelvis is rotated beneath it.

We feel that this is an expectable, viable body form in our thought experiment. 

And indeed the dinosaur looks more like us than our own ancestors did.

[Jordan Mallon] Dale’s dinosauroid was met with mixed reaction by the scientific community.

I don’t think many people bought into Dale’s specific reconstruction of the animal, but they did think it was an interesting idea.

Other people took a harder line against Dale’s thought experiment, and thought it was just preposterous that a dinosaur could ever evolve to look anything like a human.

[Peter Dodson] The Dinosauroid was a huge cultural success. People really liked seeing this.

But even though it was based on a very careful analysis of scientific trends, that there was I think it’s fair to say disappointment in the scientific community that it came out looking like the proverbial little green man.

And the scientific reaction was “but Dale, we’ve known about little green men since the 1930’s!” And I’m sure that he was hurt by that reaction.

[Narrator] The image of the dinosauroid has sparked the imagination of many since it was first published.

This painting was created by Ely Kish, a well-known artist that worked with Dale Russell illustrating dinosaur scenes for his books.

[Jordan Mallon] The dinosauroid’s image has appeared all over the popular press, from documentaries to books and even to the tabloids.

[Narrator] Today, “Herman”—as he is affectionately named by Museum staff—serves as a mascot for Research and Collections at the Museum’s Gatineau campus.

[Alan McDonald, Collection Technician, Palaeobiology, Canadian Museum of Nature] Herman has become an endearing, unofficial member of the staff.

He tends to hang out in the Research and Collections coffee room, regularly participates in the holiday celebrations dressing up in fitting festive attire, sometimes wanders about the Natural Heritage Campus.

And he even makes a cameo appearance in our annual Research and Collections staff photo.

[Narrator] But beyond the humour, the dinosauroid also represents scientific curiosity and the brilliant mind of palaeontologist Dr. Dale Russell.

[Jordan Mallon] As modest as Dale was, he left behind a huge scientific legacy—one that had a big influence on me as a young dinosaur-nut growing up in Ottawa.

It was an honour to be able to co-edit a special volume in Dale’s memory, a collection of top-notch research papers inspired by Dale’s own work.

[Alan McDonald] Dale’s dinosauroid was a unique and very creative out-of-the-box “what if?” that gave us all a greater appreciation for our own existence.

[On-screen text: In memory of Dale Russell, Ph.D. 1937-2019]