With six years of phd work on theropod dinosaurs behind him, Darren Naish mostly spends long hours in the library, hunched over his laptop. But he gets out sometimes, and picks up litter and pursues exotic lizards across the British countryside, aiming all the while to publish his technical work on obscure Cretaceous dinosaurs. He also messes around with pterosaurs, swimming giraffes, British big cats and stuff like that. He has given up on the stupid idea of being a dedicated academic and ekes out a living as a technical consultant, editor and author. He can be contacted intermittently at eotyrannus (at) gmail dot com. For more biographical info go 
It started with a visit to the zoo. Those remarkable African birds, the ground hornbills, got me thinking about Dale Russell's hypothetical thought-experiment (Russell 1987, Russell & Seguin 1982): what if non-avian dinosaurs (specifically, troodontid maniraptorans) had not bought the farm at the end of the Cretaceous but, instead, had continued to evolve? One thing led to another and I ended up both disagreeing with Russell's concept of a human-like erect-bodied short-faced flat-footed tailless dinosauroid, and speculating about what - in my view - a 'real' dinosauroid might look like...
My description proved inspirational to Nemo Ramjet who, I am honoured to say, produced the new-look dinosauroid Avisapiens saurotheos (cropped image at left), a post-Cretaceous big-brained maniraptoran that conforms with my ideas. On a parallel Earth where theropod dinosaurs have followed a similar evolutionary path to hominids, this is the result.
As you'll note from the links - and as you'll know if you're a follower of Tetrapod Zoology anyway - all of this is old hat. The news is that Nemo has taken this one step further. I won't spoil the surprise by recounting all the details, but highlights include the use of spit and charcoal, of feathers and twigs gripped between Nemo's teeth, and the rendition of the black thing, nemesis of Avisapiens. Once more Nemo, I am honoured. Long may you daub your naked body in paint and run around making bird noises.
Refs - -
Russell, D. A. 1987. Models and paintings of North American dinosaurs. In Czerkas, S. J. & Olson, E. C. (eds) Dinosaurs Past and Present, Volume I. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County/University of Washington Press (Seattle and Washington), pp. 114-131.
- . & Seguin, R. 1982. Reconstruction of the small Cretaceous theropod Stenonychosaurus inequalis and a hypothetical dinosauroid. Syllogeus 37, 1-43.
Comments
That's too cool for words.
Posted by: Zach Miller | March 6, 2007 7:39 PM
This is amazing. I'm linking to it!
Posted by: Monado | March 6, 2007 10:25 PM
Another fantastic piece of speculative biology. Makes you wonder how those animals live, how they communicate, what they do in their spare time, how they hunt...
Posted by: Emile | March 7, 2007 5:01 AM
MMM the new dinosauroid looks turkeylicious. I'd eat it. Fois gras, anyone?
Posted by: John R. Hutchinson | March 7, 2007 10:12 AM
Amazing. Especially the "black thing". In an alternative timeline without a K/T extinction, you would ecpect the stereotypical Tyrannosaur, but this is obviously something different, being quadrupedal to start with. A ziphodont crocodile, maybe? Or a stagodont that has grown very large and very nasty (it seems to be covered in hair or some other filament)? Or an ornithischian that started as a pig/entelodont-style omnivore - psittacosaurus and/or protoceratops may be a model - and ended up as a predator (it seems to have psittacosaur-style quills on its tail)?
Posted by: johannes | March 7, 2007 10:46 AM
Entelodonts _were_ carnivores, at least in the case of *Archeotherium* IIRC.
Posted by: Raymond | March 7, 2007 11:42 AM
This 'what if dinosaurs didnt die out' keeps poppin up in the last week. First watching the 'Super Mario Bros' movie for the 1st time in years (and remembering WHY i hadn't! lol), then horizon advertise the episode on next tues called 'my pet dinosaur' about how humans would act if dinosaurs had died out (Slightly unscientific as it would have probaly would have made the odds of us evolving as we are pretty low! And they say horizon is dumbing down! lol) and now this blog.
Funny how things happen
Posted by: Neil | March 7, 2007 2:00 PM
I ran across Nemo's new piece yesterday, and complimented him on it. Bravo for bringing it to a wider audience!
Posted by: Poseidon | March 7, 2007 5:35 PM
Definitely the most amazing thing I've seen all day. I remember watching some dinosaur documentaries as a kid during the 80's/early 90's and seeing Russell's alien-like dinosaur man. The improbable creature seemed to have more to do with UFO abductions than scientific extrapolation.
Speaking of "alternate realities," this post reminds me of some Dougal Dixon books I read a while back; I think they were entitled After Man and The New Dinosaurs. Although they were pure fantasy, they were certainly fun to read, and the Dixon's nightmare image of bipedal, predatory bats will forever be stuck in my mind (I think a diorama of the creatures were created at one time and featured on one of the Gary Owens dinosaur specials).
Posted by: Brian | March 7, 2007 5:52 PM
Dougal Dixon had another book too: Man after Man, a Bradbury-esque vision of humankind's future (should current trends continue). The thing I never liked about Dixon's tomes were that he kind of superimposed prehistoric reptiles over current animals, like his pterosaur giraffe, ornithopod whale, or coelurosaur flamingo. He also seems to have an unhealthy obsession with ant-eaters and aye-ayes, as all three of his books have variations on that theme.
He also doesn't do a good job of sticking with end-Cretaceous animals. Brachiosaurs? Stegosaurs? Megalosaurus? Get with the program, Dixon! I also didn't like that his "new" dinosaurs had hair (give 'em feathers). "After Man" was his best work, although so many of the animals looked like Muppets...
Posted by: Zach Miller | March 7, 2007 8:53 PM
I wonder how their society would work in a more modern political context?
-Pardon me for the tangent/rant here-
It made me think of how theropod-like Brian Froud's Skesis characters were, however vaguely, in appearance and behavior, minus the english speech. The dialogue was recorded in a "Dark crystal" language originally, then dubbed with voice actors, I think that's what Froud and Henson wanted for the film, originally.
He (Brain Froud) described the Skeksis himself as "Part retile, part predatory bird, part dragon...". That's quite an analogous, if vague phrase, to how people generally think of small theropods.
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I think the black creature in the dinosophont pics is probably a theropod of some sort, maybe an abelisaur.
But who knows, maybe it's some sort of maniraptor (judging from the tail looking like that of Avisapiens), or perhaps a revered dinosaurian (ceratopsian??) "Auroch"?
Posted by: Tim Morris | March 8, 2007 4:40 AM
Zach: on Dougal Dixon and his creatures, please see my previous post on speculative zoology. Note also that a copy of After Man is visible in the banner at top of page.
Posted by: Darren Naish | March 8, 2007 6:01 AM
This is what you need: http://spec.int.tc
To quote the contributor Émile Moacdieh: "Come, come to the dork side of the farce."
AFAIK that's an exaggeration. However, especially the juveniles did clearly eat much meat.
Posted by: David Marjanovi? | March 8, 2007 1:45 PM
The Nemo's idea is great! But...is the cave art a necessary step in the cultural evolution of the new (and more realistic) dinosauroid ?
From an archosaurian point of view, I consider dance and music as more probable espressions... ( I remember a percussionist black cacatua, but, I'm sorry, I cannot say more...)
Posted by: Andrea Cau | March 8, 2007 2:11 PM
Oh my Darwin. Specworld is the coolest website on the interweb. *bookmarks* *loses track of time*
Posted by: Zach Miller | March 8, 2007 7:10 PM
-David-
http://www.douglasfossils.com/multi_kill.html
Doesn't mean they didn't chew roots and forbs for water and nutrients.My cats and dogs happily did both while terrorizing the back woodlot.
Come,come to the Dork Side of the Farce;)
Posted by: Raymond | March 8, 2007 7:36 PM
Is there any way I can help with the art of Specworld? I notice that a lot of the pictures need revising, and some animals are simply not there.
Posted by: Zach Miller | March 8, 2007 8:07 PM
-Zach
Sure, just join the yahoogroup,
"Dinosaur Mailing List Killed Threads", it's been
the primary forum for Specworld discussion more or less over the past 6 years.
Posted by: Raymond | March 8, 2007 9:11 PM
Go to the Latest page. It says how to join the mailing list.
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 8, 2007 9:16 PM
I would like to see more Darren- Nemo collaborations!
Posted by: Steve Bodio | March 9, 2007 12:58 PM
I went to Nemo Ramjet's site and looked around. In my humble opinion, as someone with a longtime interest in art history - including fantasy art - his work is great. I'm reminded of the early work of Ernst Fuchs.
Posted by: Colugo | March 22, 2007 1:55 AM
"and the Dixon's nightmare image of bipedal, predatory bats will forever be stuck in my mind (I think a diorama of the creatures were created at one time and featured on one of the Gary Owens dinosaur specials)."
It was, I remember seeing it as a kid. Freaked me out good back then, too...
Posted by: BlueMako | May 1, 2007 2:55 AM