Perhaps the most ‘advanced’ dinosaur known to have been living at the time of the extinction was a small theropod called Troodon. They were small, upright dinosaurs that walked in a bipedal fashion and lived in large groups. Even more compelling was that detailed analysis of their brain structure seems to suggest that they possessed very good vision and even potentially the ability to solve complex problems.
So with its large, substantial brain, long grasping hands and big eyes, could Troodon have wandered down the same evolutionary path as ourselves, to not only possess a similar level of intelligence, but even come to resemble us physically? Some palaeontologists think that it’s likely that at least one kind of dinosaur could have evolved along the same sort of lines as primates or humans. Their argument centres on the fact that we humans are an incredibly successful form of life, and so if intelligence is a good solution for us, then why shouldn’t it be a good solution for dinosaurs?
