66 million years ago, an asteroid about 10 kilometers in diameter hit the Earth, releasing the equivalent of 10 billion atomic bombs detonating at the same time, taking away 90% of life on Earth, including all dinosaurs, which provided an opportunity for the rise of mankind.
Prior to this, dinosaurs had ruled the earth for 160 million years and traveled to all corners of the world. Imagine that human development has only been two or three million years, and it is already possible to initially change the orbit of asteroids with a diameter of tens of meters. It won't take 160 million years, maybe another 160 years, enough to defend against an asteroid 10 kilometers in diameter.
Many people wonder: dinosaurs and humans walk upright on their legs, why did dinosaurs not evolve into intelligent creatures?
The answer is simple, because only some of the dinosaurs walked upright. Moreover, human ancestors walked upright to free their hands and enhance creativity; After the dinosaur walked upright, the forelimbs degenerated and did not have powerful functions.
What really leads to the different paths of the two is the brain. The human brain is the foundation of creativity, allowing our ancestors to learn to use tools, to realize that plants can grow themselves, and to discover that meat can be roasted before eating. It's a virtuous cycle, but the starting point is an increase in IQ, and smart brains can discover these secrets.
In contrast, dinosaurs are worse. Many people have heard since childhood that dinosaurs are relatively low IQ animals, although they are huge, but the brain is very small.
Probably since the Jurassic, dinosaurs have become larger and larger, especially sauropods, which are particularly amazing. For example, Diplodocus can grow to 27 meters long and weigh more than ten tons; Mamenxi dragon is 22 meters long and weighs 18.2 tons. There is also the Seismosaurus, now considered a creature of the genus Diplodocus, which is estimated to be up to 42 meters long, more than the blue whale, and weighs 40 tons, equivalent to a dozen Asian elephants!
Theropod dinosaurs are also not polite, and have also increased their size - otherwise how to prey on these huge herbivorous dinosaurs? Take Tyrannosaurus rex as an example, the largest is 13 meters long and weighs 8.8 tons; there is also Spinosaurus living in Africa, estimated to be 15 meters long and weighs 7.39 tons; the southern giant beast dragon in "Jurassic World 3" is described as a larger carnivorous dinosaur than Tyrannosaurus rex, but paleontologists estimate that it should not weigh more than Scotty, but it is already quite huge.
After the dinosaurs, such a huge animal has never lived on land again. Whether it is the mammals that rose after the dinosaurs, or the birds that descend of the dinosaurs, they are much smaller than them. The latter, however, has a bigger brain.
Brachiosaurus as an example, can reach a height of 15 meters, a body length of 23 meters, and a weight of 30 tons, but the brain is only 69 grams, which is not as heavy as a duck egg. In contrast, don't look at our small human size, but the average weight of the brain can reach 1.3 kilograms, which is the source of human wisdom.
However, paleontologists are also aware that dinosaur brains seem to have a tendency to grow larger over time. By the late Cretaceous, there were some newly emerged dinosaurs whose brains were larger than those of the Jurassic. In the case of Tyrannosaurus rex, the brain reached 400 grams, and although the proportion of body weight is still pitifully small, it at least represents a trend. There is also a velociraptor that weighs less than 100 pounds, but has a brain of 15 grams, which is higher than that of Tyrannosaurus rex, so it is often considered a very intelligent dinosaur.
According to this trend, dinosaurs are indeed going through the process of going from stupid to intelligent. If their intelligence does reach a certain level, they may really be able to acquire more survival skills and even gradually develop wisdom.
Therefore, in the 80s of the 20th century, paleontologist Dale Russell proposed a hypothesis that carnivorous dinosaurs gradually evolved without extinction and became intelligent creatures. Eventually, this "dinosaur man" walked completely upright like us, with a larger head and more flexible fingers.
Unlike dinosaurs, mammals don't seem to care about increasing their size. Rhinos, elephants, giraffes... These animals may seem huge to humans, but they are not worth mentioning in front of dinosaurs. Mammals, by contrast, seem to be more concerned with brain development. Whether it's seals, elephants or humans, the proportion of brains far exceeds that of dinosaurs. Even truly huge cetaceans have never neglected the evolution of the brain.
Of course, it is not that dinosaurs are really useless, their descendants also have evolutionary brains, that is, birds.
I have to say that birds are indeed the more intelligent type of dinosaurs, and luckily escaped the disaster and multiplied to this day. Parrots, for example, can't understand what humans say, but they can imitate human speech. There are also crows, who can even use tools and communicate with each other. Some even believe that if humanity goes extinct, crows will "rule the world."
It's just that compared to mammals, especially primates, even birds are a bit less intelligent. In this way, even without asteroids, dinosaurs may not be able to evolve into intelligent life.
Moreover, even primates have evolved humans full of chance.
You know, primates have appeared at least 56 million years ago. They migrated to North America three times 55 million years ago, 50 million years ago, and 20 million years ago, and also migrated to South America 35 million years ago. The result? They just evolved different monkeys, roaming the jungle in different ways every day, unable to escape the nature of the beast.
It was only in Africa that primates took a different evolutionary approach, with brains further developed and eventually humans evolved.
Is there an element of luck here? You may say that perhaps it is the inevitable result of Africa's topography, climate, other biological factors and other factors, but isn't it also an accident that so many inducing factors can be collected? What's more, the genetic mutations that drive biological evolution are not directed, and only the accumulation of genetic mutations that have experienced multiple increases in brain weight has promoted the rise of human beings.
Therefore, even if dinosaurs are not extinct, whether they can evolve into intelligent life in these 66 million years is full of unknowns. Theoretically, this is possible, but given the small base of their brain weight, it is indeed low.