"Dinosaurs seem strange, but that is just because we are mammals biased toward assuming the modern fauna is familiar and normal, and past forms are exotic and alien. Consider that elephants are bizarre creatures with their combination of big brains, massive limbs, oversized ears, teeth turned into tusks, and noses elongated into hose-like trunks. Nor were dinosaurs part of an evolutionary progression that was necessary to set the stage for mammals culminating into humans. What dinosaurs do show is a parallel world, one in which mammals were permanently subsidiary, whereas the dinosaurs show what largely diurnal land animals that evolved straight from similarly day-loving ancestors should actually look like. Modern mammals are much more peculiar, having evolved from nocturnal beasts that came into their own only after the entire elimination of nonavian dinosaurs. While dinosaurs dominated the land, small nocturnal mammals were just as abundant and diverse as they are in our modern world. If not for the accident of the later even, dinosaurs would probably still be the global norm."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
People from Washington, D.C.IllustratorsScience authorsAuthors from the United StatesPaleontologists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Gregory S. Paul (2010) The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Princeton University Press, p. 14
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Scott_Paul
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Gregory Scott Paul
21 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Gregory Scott Paul →
Related Quotes
"Put a leopard and a [Deinonychus] together and the former would be in trouble."
"The dinosaur world I grew up in was classical. They were universally seen as scaley herps that inhabited the immobile…"
"Ever since the early '80s I have applied feathers to many of the small dinosaurs, and never did smaller theropods wit…"
"Novelist Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park as a screenplay option for the Steven Spielberg flick. I am ambiguous a…"
"[Deinonychus] is usually considered a small dinosaur. But the largest individual was an eleven-foot-long animal whose…"
"Dinosaur remains have been found by humans for millennia and probably helped form the basis for belief in mythical be…"
"Alas, producers of commercial dinosaur products continue to churn out low quality product that is either obsolete or …"
"The biggest living terrestrial predator, the Siberian tiger, at about a third of a metric ton (300 kg) pales in compa…"
"How would we think and feel about predatory dinosaurs if they were alive today? Humans have long felt antipathy towar…"
"If not for the long tail, one might mistake a theropod for a big, toothy, marauding bird in the dark. That theropods …"