Species of the week: Voth

[Monroe]

The fact that we get better tech over time and 75 milion years is a long time it seems logical we would be rather advanced if not assended.

Yes we do but there is no guarantee that our technology will keep getting better indefinitely or at the same pace.

According to some of the stuff talked about in that Atlantis thread some theories out there say that races can take a rollercoast of technology and collapse. Which even if we haven't ever done that before makes sense to me.

If Civilization collapsed, like completely, it would take a few thousand years to get back to where we were. Not a few decades.

Maybe the Voth's civilization collapsed a few times. Maybe they're responsible for those balls 2.8 billion years ago

[Teaos]

But when you are spread over thousends of light years and hundreds of planets it is almost impossible to collapse. It would just turn into every planet for themselves and some would do rather well.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

I find the Voth interesting. They are a plausable species. It would take thousands, maybe even millions of years to reach the Delta quadrent. It took humans how long to go from spears to arrows to guns to automatic machine guns. Vulcans took hundreds of years to go from flying to warp speed. Technology doesn't evolve that quickly.

And after a few million years any evidence could dissapear. We don't know if they had plastics that would survive that long. Planetary changes over that time could make any surviving evidence be buried in mountins or something. We have trouble finding a few fossels much less an entire civilazation. They may have minimized their impact on the planet as well.

Also, to the person who thought dinosaurs were lizards: go back to school. Dinosaurs are not reptiles. They don't fit any modern classification. Heck, they're more like birds then reptiles.

[Mikey]

Well, dinosaurs are closest to being a step between reptiles and birds, but the conventional thinking for a LONG time has been to classify the dinosaurs as reptiles. That's how they got the name "dinosaurs" - get it? In addition, the relationship between dinosaurs an certain modern reptiles - like the tuatara - is unmistakable.

So no, they weren't "lizards" but you are dead wrong to pillory someone for calling them reptiles, or for claiming that they were not reptiles.

[Monroe]

Okay I know they technically aren't reptiles but they have the same problems that reptiles would have in becoming intelligent do they not?

[Tsukiyumi]

I don't know, some modern birds are very intelligent, and a lot of evidence suggests that birds are directly related to dinosaurs. I could see something like a large parrot evolving sentience in a few million years without a lot of outside competition, and barring catastrophic events.

[Teaos]

Not only that but when they were first classified they compared a diinosaure tooth they dug up to a lizard alive today and found they were the same but for the size.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Dinosaurs don't fit any traditional types of animals. They aren't mammals, birds, or reptiles. This is common knowledge. Like how Dolphins aren't fish. I don't think I was out of line. Just because some species have similarities doesn't mean they're of the same type. For teeth it could mean they had similar diets.

And there are many species of dinosaurs that could have easily developed human-level intelligence.

[Mikey]

Dolphins aren't fish because they're mammals - that's pretty simple. As far as intelligence, there would have had to have been a huge and unsupported by evidence shift in the direction of dinosaur brain size.

There were contemporary reptiles with bigger brains, but these weren't dinosaurs.

[Teaos]

I would bet a lot of people still think dino's are lizards or very close to.

[Sionnach Glic]

A lot of people who simply have no idea about biology and the calssification of different organisms generaly asume them to be big reptiles. It's an understandable misconception, and I wouldn't partiuclarly consider anyone who thinks they were reptiles to be an idiot.

[Mikey]

Of course not - for a long period of time, they WERE classified scientifically as reptiles. Things like archaeopteryx were not considered to be dinosaurs, and it is only within the last year that velociraptor was found to be feather-bearing. In addition, many of the less reptile-like contemporary creatures - icthyosaurs, mosasaurs, and the flying things like pteranodons - were never considered dinosaurs at all.

[Teaos]

Honestly I always though of them as a branch of reptiles. Like how we are a branch of monkeys.

[Mikey]

Well, if they truly aren't reptiles, then they're only one step removed.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

They do have simularities with reptiles. They have many reptilian features, however their bone structure is more bird-like. The larger ones are unlikely to be reptiles because reptiles need to get their body heat from external sources. That's why many reptiles are built low to the ground. Many dinosoars have tall builds. That is not typical of a reptilian species.