SCIENCE

8.30pm

Palaeontologists claim that 65 million years ago a massive meteorite emerged from space, and ploughed into the Earth. This catastrophic event is what most scientists believe wiped out the dinosaurs. But what would have happened if it missed? How would it affect the way we live today?

On Sunday October 14 at 8.30pm in the Science timeslot, SBS Television will screen My Pet Dinosaur where a panel of experts are asked to re-run the tape of evolution.

Many scientists have debated that the dinosaur was a doomed species in every sense of the word. If not the meteorite, then the ice age would have certainly sealed its fate! However, recent fossil discoveries have led some experts to believe that these animals were far more adaptable then given credit for and could have comfortably adjusted to a variety of environments, from polar conditions, to regions of rivers and forests, jungle and deserts.

Had the dinosaur avoided death by meteorite and lived through the Ice Age, the world as we know it would be very different. If humans managed to survive alongside the dinosaur, we would be one of very few mammals left roaming the earth.

Would we be hunting Hadrosaurs instead of bears? Or farming Protoceratops instead of pigs? Would dinosaurs be kept as pets? Or would the human race be forced to surrender its throne as the dominant species?