Teach Me Something Tuesday #6

TROODON

For this Teach Me Something Tuesday I wanted to talk about dinosaurs, because I’m all about dinosaurs. Did you know I was a Geology and Biology major in college because I wanted to be a paleontologist? Of course you did. Because you write down everything I tell you about myself in your Craig Journal and study it nightly. At first I was going to talk about one of the popular species like Tyrannosaurus Rex or Velociraptor, but then figured that wouldn’t be much of a new learning experience for you. So I’m going to teach you about Troodons, because seriously, who ever heard of these guys?

The Troodon was discovered in 1855 and was one of the first dinosaurs discovered in North America. Their fossils can be found stretching from Montana, through Alberta and all the way up to Alaska, and they lived 65 million years ago at the very end of the dinosaurs’ reign on Earth. The word “troodon” (pronounced: trow-odon) stems from a Greek word meaning “wounding tooth” because of its tooth’s deep serrations, which suggests an omnivorous (both plants and animals) diet. The Troodon was relatively small, averaging about two meters from head to tail, one meter tall, and weighing about 130 pounds. Just so you know, this is about twice the size of Velociraptors.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “What is Craig smoking? I saw Jurassic Park! Velociraptors are a lot bigger than that! He must mean Troodons were half the size of Velociraptors, not twice the size. Boy, it’s a shame someone so cute could be so stupid.” To which I point out that while Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, used the correct size of Velocirators in his book, Steven Spielberg decided to make them 6 feet tall instead of 1.5 feet tall, because seriously, 1.5 tall dinosaurs aren’t all that threatening. Coincidentally, in 1993 (the year Jurassic Park came out in theaters) the Utahraptor was discovered in (you guessed it!) Connecticut. Just kidding. Utah. And the Utahraptor was 6 feet tall, just like the Jurassic Park raptors! So Steven Spielberg is even cooler than you originally thought.

What’s so special about the Troodon, you ask? Well for one, they have one of the largest brains relative to their body mass than any other dinosaur, and paleontologists theorize that they were the most intelligent dinosaurs in history and had an intelligence comparable to modern day birds. Troodons also have the most forward facing eyes of any other dinosaur, which means that it had slightly binocular vision and depth perception, a trait only found in what are considered “higher” animals (like some of us!). They also had long slender fingers, ideal for grasping prey and giving “over there” directions.

These unique characteristics led paleontologist Dale Russell and others to theorize that if dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out by Noah’s flood the Chicxulub meteorite (the one that hit the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico) Troodons would have been readily equipped to evolve into advanced humanoids called Dinosauroids. People are quick to point out that this model is too anthropomorphic and fantastical, and had dinosaurs been allowed to advance, they would have retained their horizontal posture and evolved along similar lines as birds. It’s also pretty conceited, because must all intelligent life have human appearance? Frankly, if I were intelligent I’d want to look like Optimus Prime.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.