When last we left off in the big barrel of insanity that was Dougal Dixon's If Dinosaurs Were Alive Today, we saw a monstrously huge and very 90's Tyrannosaurus attacking a herd of longhorn cattle. This brings us into the chapter about how Theropods would have to deal with modern times.
We're going to ignore for the moment that, uh, there are theropods dealing with modern times, but we'll have to wait a while to get to them. For now, enjoy the above implication that if there were nonavian theropods around, we'd all be reenacting "Reign of Fire". Reason being that big theropods ate everything, including animals that hadn't even appeared in the fossil record yet:
Even the Hartbeeste is like, "I don't even know..."
Note: not an image from that one Animorphs book with all the dinosaurs.
This is as good a time to note that obviously Dixon isn't attacking the "what if dinosaurs were still around" premise from the same angle he did in the New Dinosaurs. New Dinosaurs is the "Primer" of alternate universe nonavian dinosaur survival fiction compared to this. With this book it almost looks like they started out with the basic idea, "Let's compare dinosaurs to modern animals" and then things went south.
I like how they just drop in the "warm-blooded" issue with no elaboration at all. Also, what? No! WHAT?!?
These "Gorilla suit" Troodons are all like, "We got your low metabolism dinosaurs right here!" More importantly, these guys are the first feathered theropods we see in the book. Brace yourself for a bunch of brain farts, including this strange looking "adult Troodon":
Sticking with the maniraptors for a bit, here's a small flock of badly rendered crab-eating Oviraptors:
This is a particularly strange Oviraptor behavioral theory that I've seen exactly twice; the other instance was illustrated by no less than Wayne D. Barlowe. I hate to be a spoilsport but wouldn't Oviraptor habitat be lacking in seashores and crabs?
And then we see this:
Alright, let's ignore the hilarious sight of a flock of Struthiomimids joining a horse race (like so many wild animals who like to run do today). "Struthiomimus resembled today's large, flightless birds... and were the ancestors of all modern birds."
What? WHAT? No. But... WHAT?!?
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Sketch of the Day!
