Lizardmen Really Modern DINOSAURS?

The Lizard man is a creature believed to live in the swamps of Scape Ore, South Carolina. It's a green, 7 foot tall, scaly biped with strong muscles, three toed webbed feet, three fingers with long, black nails, and orange glowing eyes. It was seen most often in the summer of 1988, yet some sightings continue to this day. Its known to attack cars and kill pets and livestock as large as horses. It has even been reported to act threatening towards people.

Lizardman


What I found interesting was this paragraph I quote from Deena West Budd's Wieser Field Guide to Cryptozoology in the chapter entitled Lizard Man of Scape Ore, South Carolina.

In 1982, a scientific paper was published by paleontologist Dr. Dale A. Russell and Dr. R. Seguin from the National Museum of Natural Sciences on Ottawa. The scientists theorized that, of dinosaurs had not become extinct, a bipedal 'dinosaurian of human beings' would have developed with three fingers on each hand. The model constructed from their descriptions looks amazingly like the lizard man sighted in Scape Ore, South Carolina, today!

For a more complete and sensible explanation, I give you the source from which the author got this from. I quote from the source .

In a thought experiment published in 1982, paleontologist Dale Russell, curator of vertebrate fossils at the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa, conjectured that, had the Chicxulub meteorite not exterminated the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, bipedal predators (theropods) which existed at that time, such as Troodon, would have evolved into intelligent beings similar in body plan to humans. Troodontids had semi-manipulative fingers, able to grasp and hold objects to a certain degree, and binocular vision. Like most dinosaurs of the troodontid family, this imaginary creature, which Russell called the "Dinosauroid", would have had large eyes and three fingers on each hand, one of which would have been partially opposed. As with most modern reptiles (and birds), its genitalia would have been internal. Russell speculated that it would have required a navel, as a placenta aids the development of a large brain case, however it would not have possessed mammary glands, and would have fed its young, as birds do, on regurgitated food. Its language would have sounded somewhat like bird song. Russell's fanciful speculation has been met with criticism from other paleontologists since the 1980s, many of whom point out that Russell's Dinosauroid is overly anthropomorphic. Gregory S. Paul (1988) and Thomas R. Holtz Jr., consider it "suspiciously human" (Paul, 1988) and argue that a large-brained, highly intelligent troodontid would retain a more standard theropod body plan, with a horizontal posture and long tail, and would probably manipulate objects with the snout and feet in the manner of a bird, rather than with human-like "hands". Darren Naish (2006) pointed to the ground hornbill as a better model for an intelligent dinosaur. Artists have used these new approaches to the original thought experiment to re-interpret the Dinosauroid, going so far as to create "Dinosauroid cave art", which depicts sentient, tool-using troodontids and other dinosaurs and pterosaurs, painted using sticks and feathers.

The dinosaur/Lizardman sculpture.

great post.......wow that really got me thinking about the history of the earth.........wow this is very cool to think about...........obviously our features are natures top dog........only to think if the evolutionary chain would have stayed with cold blooded organisms........

this got me thinking but what if there were lizardmen 75 million yrs ago and they had a brain that functioned like ours.......but say that and event happened that changed the climate like a meteor.......and they didnt have enough time to advance their race..........they wouldnt have anyway of escaping this planet.......and seeing how they are cold blooded why not seek shelter underground..........we know very little about the deep sea and caves.......some being to dangerous to explore others lie undiscovered

[edit on 3-7-2010 by JTpirate]

reply to post by JTpirate


Well, the article talks about how these dinosauriods WOULD have evolved if there was no mass extinction among dinosaurs. Basically, if these dinosaurs somehow survived extinction, they would evolve and become what we now know as Lizardmen.

Nice post!
This is what leads to me to give some credence to the whole lizard reptilian spiel. If humanoid dinosaurs did escape the wipeout, and even before that, who knows how long they could have evolved. And yes, I too think they may reside underground. They may have developed the shape-shifting and mind reading abilities. It was so long ago, who really knows? I think this is where the figurines and depictions of lizard people in lore may come from.
Just speculation, but fun nonetheless.

Peace


[edit on 3-7-2010 by speculativeoptimist]

Wow, that blew my mind.
When I was reading about the theory of what dinosaurs would look like, had they evolved into intelligent beings...
So many imagines flashed in my head.
I have never thought of that.

I'm am going to go draw some of those images I saw in my head.
Imagine if me and you right now, were reptiles!

Oh and This would make a freakin amazing movie/game idea.

Star and Flag

Very nice post S&F, I've also heard about this story from watching an episode of Monster Quest on The History Channel.

So, if life would develop under similar circumstances on another planet and wouldn't be hit by a meteorite, lizards would be the dominant species and had an advantage of 65 millions years.
Time enough to develop interdimensional/interplanetary travel and invade and dominate other worlds.

I tend to roll my eyes whenever a cryptid is described as having "glowing red / orange / paisley eyes" because, dammit, eyes do not project light. They can reflect light, but if enough light is reflecting for you to really notice, then you've got the thing face-on in light and you can tell it's a freaking raccoon or something.

However, dinosaurs do still exist. They're called birds. Along with crocodilians, thy make up the remnants of the Archosaurs (Dinosaurs, crocodilians, phytosaurs, birds, pterosaurs)

And the Humanosaurus idea is, sadly, laughable. I though it was cool back in grade school, but I've since learned better, and I'll share that with you.

First... In order for the creature to arrive at a completely human shape would require first, that it undergo completely identical evolutionary pressures that humans did, at every state of development. Obviously this is unlikely.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

We would then have to assume that these pressures would have the same effect and same answers on a small Coelurosaurian that they had on a small primate. If the same pressures being faced is unlikely, then arriving at the same body plan in response is completely ridiculous. The physiology of a dinosaur and a primate are wildly divergent; about all you can say is that they're both tetrapod vertebrates. As both creatures have a very different suite of genes and physical features and ecological niches, they would no doubt respond to identical pressures in radically different ways (Humans adapted to a drought by becoming upright running apes. Hamadryas baboons adapted to the same drought by becoming grazers who sit on their butts and yank grass. And we're both primates!)

The model also makes a rather common error; the assumption that humans are a "pinnacle" and that any developed, sapient being must of course look like us. What if dinosaurs hadn't died out, why, they would evolve into humans, only scalier (of course, we now know they'd be feathery if they were anything). What if woolly mammoths hadn't died out? Why, humans with big noses, you silly person! Etc., etc..

And for a moment, let's say that such a creature had evolved. it surely wouldn't be lurking all alone in a South Carolina swamp with no greater agenda than to scare people with its "glowing orange eyes."

All the fossil record shows us is... the things that got fossilised. Anything that didn't get fossilised rotted and decomposed millions of years ago, leaving no trace or evidence of its existence. Therefore, the fossil record does not necessarily give us a complete picture of what life existed on earth millions of years ago, just a sampling of life that was in the right place at the right time in order to be preserved.

This idea has been explored many times in science fiction, notably with the Voth and the Silurians.

reply to post by Alexander the Great


News Flash the dinosaurs escaping extinction by burrowing underground thing has been done in comic books etc. for years. Watch the Justice League Unlimited cartoon or the new All Star Superman.... Yeah Superman had some dealings with these underground lizard people. Great Dragons from the sky in south american and Asian cultures... If a sentient race of dinosaurs existed that were human like 65 million years ago... and they had the capability of burrowing deep underground or fly off world to another star system then it will be freaking nutz to imagine what they have changed into over 65 million years.

The space faring dinos would be highly intellectual and be influenced depending on what worlds they settled on and what other unique species they interacted with. Some decendants may be savage or tribal still just recently coming to the surface to interact with humans. Perhaps they left came back after humans advanced a little in their development. Helped shape the pyramids and other this with chimera like species of aliens and for some reason departed from the planet.

Who really knows. Anything is possible. THey could have under warter cities at the bottom of the deepest oceans

There is a similar thread here for those interested in the subject

en.wikipedia.org...
sci-fi novel with premise evolving humans encounter intelligent dino/reptilians

check out Versa's thread above re aliens = dinos, real interesting

dupe post
move along, nothing to see here...

I can remember once as a child seeing a National Enquirer front page picture of that same dino humanoid thing.
The caption read something to the effect of...What We Would Look Like If Dinosaurs Were Still Alive

For some reason I will never forget that picture.