My Own Personal Dinosauroid

Regular readers of Tetrapod Zoology content will be aware of the long-standing interest round these parts in the dinosauroid, a hypothetical humanoid theropod dinosaur posited to evolve in an alternative timeline where the end-Cretaceous extinction event never happened…

Caption: what have we here? Read on…

The dinosauroid was devised in the early 1980s by Ottawa-based palaeontologist Dale Russell and model-maker Ron Séguin, and the most complete rendition of its construction and the story behind it was published in 1982 (Russell & Séguin 1982). Dale – an extraordinary scientist whose work and ideas impacted many of his peers and colleagues – died in 2019 and it’s fitting that a special tribute volume of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences was devoted to him in 2021. I’m pleased to say that I was invited to contribute a special paper on the dinosauroid for that volume (Naish & Tattersdill 2021), and for more details on the paper concerned see the 2021 Tetrapod Zoology article Humanoid Dinosaurs Revisited Again: Russell and Séguin’s Dinosauroid at (Nearly) 40 Years Old.

Caption: my long-standing interest in the dinosauroid can be said to have culminated in this, the Naish & Tattersdill (2021) paper in this special tribute issue of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. But little was I to know that peak dinosauroid was yet to be achieved.

The dinosauroid has been discussed in a huge number of popular and semi-popular venues, including books and magazine articles and even comics and graphic novels, and a consequence of its popularity is that it’s been realised for TV more than once. Many readers of this blog will remember the 1991 TV series Dinosaur!, presented by Walter Cronkite and co-produced by Granada Television in the UK, Primedia in Canada and Satel across continental Europe. The series was accompanied by a book of the same name, authored by British dinosaur expert Dr David Norman (Norman 1991).

The last episode of Dinosaur! takes an unusual turn in that it ends with the revelation that its narrator is not human, but a dinosauroid from an alternative timeline. The dinosauroid we see is not quite the same as the one depicted by Russell & Séguin (1982) but arguably more interesting in appearance: it’s green with red stripes, and has large, orange, plate-like scales across its chest. You might be disappointed to hear that it isn’t really a dinosauroid from an alternative timeline, but a person wearing a suit, and we learn from the book (Norman 1991) that said person is Emma Norman, Dr David Norman’s daughter.

Caption: the Norman/Minister Dinosaur! dinosauroid, here ripped mercilessly from an article at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs. Don’t tell them.

Caption: the colourful dinosauroid that appears in the 1991 TV series Dinosaur!, narrated by Walter Cronkite. Both images come from David Norman’s 1991 book of the same name, which is not as bad as I remember.

Here's where things take an unusual personal turn. Over the past couple of decades I’ve worked on and off as an author, consultant and editor on various dinosaur-themed books published by Dorling Kindersley, and one thing I’ve done a lot of is provide advice and information on digitally crafted artwork. I’ve worked with several artists while doing this work, and among them is Peter Minister. Peter is a man of many talents. He’s produced no end of digital dinosaurs and other animals (living, extinct and fantastical) – mostly crafted in zbrush – but is also a skilled maker of more traditional models, and to that end has made pieces for TV and film, and for display in museums and exhibitions.

So imagine my surprise on checking the 1991 Dinosaur! book and seeing that Peter is credited as the maker of the dinosauroid from the abovementioned TV series (Norman 1991, p. 187). In conversation, Peter confirmed that he was guilty as charged. It might not be much of a secret that I maintain a large, ahem, ‘working collection’ of animal models, figures and toys. Peter produces zbrush models and once made a dinosauroid. Had he considered, I mused, idly, the creation of a zbrush dinosauroid model?

Caption: in which Peter Minister creates what might be the world’s first zbrush model of Russell & Séguin’s dinosauroid. Images: (c) Peter Minister.

Before you could say Stenonychosaurus inequalis, said model was finished and in my inbox. And like SID 6.7 in the 1995 movie Virtuosity, all it needed was access to a convenient 3D printer. Here I owe substantial thanks to my friend and colleague Luke Muscutt (of robotic swimming plesiosaur fame) who kindly did the printing on my behalf. And thus, world, I give you physical models of the dinosauroid that now occupy a position on the cherished top shelf of my finest display case…

Caption: two differently sized dinosauroid figures, printed attractively in translucent blue and metallic grey, in a display cabinet. Thanks to Peter and Luke for bringing the dream to life. Images: Darren Naish.

I have no doubt that you want such a model of your own, so let’s see where we go from here.

For previous Tetrapod Zoology articles on the dinosauroid and related issues, see…

Help support Tetrapod Zoology and my research, and see stuff behind the scenes before it gets released to the proletariat.

Refs - -

Naish, D. & Tattersdill, W. 2021. Art, anatomy and the stars: Russell and Séguin’s dinosauroid. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 58, 968-979.

Norman, D. 1991. Dinosaur! Boxtree, London.

Russell, D. A. & Séguin, R. 1982. Reconstruction of the small Cretaceous theropod Stenonychosaurus inequalis and a hypothetical dinosauroid. Syllogeus 37, 1-43.