And the last of my Star Trek entries into the Geology and Dinos in Pop Culture is perhaps the greatest dinosaurian related episode of Star Trek to date. The episode is from Star Trek: Voyager, Season 3, Episode 23, entitled "Distant Origin".
This clip above is just a small portion of the episode, in which I highly recommend watching the whole thing if possible. In the episode, the crew of the Voyager are faced with the Voth. A species that, after some genetic determination, evolved from hadrosaursians and somehow ended up across the galaxy into the Delta Quadrant. Their supposition was that this hadrosaurian species survived the extinction of the dinosaurs and were isolated on an island, where eventually they evolved space-faring technology to somehow eventually leave Earth and end up across the cosmos. The best part is when they start researching the history of the Voth, leading them to Eryops, "from the Devonian era".
Eryops from the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Distant Origin"
Their reconstruction of Eryops though, does not actually resemble the current reconstructions (pictured below). Nor is it from the Devonian, having been found in Permian deposits over 100 million years later. However, this reconstruction looks amazingly like a pelycosaur, like Dimetrodon, just without the sail.
Eryops was an amphibian, and was supposed to stand in on Voyager as the "last common ancestor of cold-blooded and warm-blooded organisms." My assumption is that they were looking for the split between mammals and reptiles. However, that is not entirely an accurate thing, since mammals evolved much later. What we need to search for is the split between Synapsids (the group that evolved into and includes mammals) and Diapsids (the group that includes crocodilians, dinosaurs, and birds). Both of these groups fall under the classification of amniotes.
The branch between these groups is thought to have taken place in the Lower Permian, approximately 300 million years ago and would have involved early synapsids, such as the pelycosaurs (kind of pictured in the show) . And although pelycosaurs are considered basal synapsids, not the ancestors to both dinosaurs and mammals, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the actual ancestor would have several similar characteristics.
So although their name dropping of Eryops was 100% incorrect, perhaps their model was a bit closer to reality.
The show also asks what was the "most highly evolved cold-blooded organism to develop from the Eryops" and the show pictures a Hadrosaur. Specifically, a Parasaurolophus.
The "most highly evolved" dinosaur according to Star Trek: Voyager.
Evolutionarily speaking, all reptiles, and this includes all dinosaurs/birds, would have evolved from the basal diapsids. So by saying the "most highly evolved", you are making assumptions that one organism is more evolved than another one, which is not how evolution works. There is no organism that is "more highly evolved" than another. Each organism is adapted to their own environment. I am assuming by "more highly evolved" they mean more intelligent, which is another matter entirely. And even then, it is assumed that the theropod branch of dinosaurs, the one that evolves into birds, would be much more intelligent than the sauropods, which were larger and lumbering herbivorous dinosaurs. Heck, the birds even survived the end Cretaceous extinction, which none of the Sauropods did. (well except this one branch that went off into space.
Evolution of the Voth from their Parasaurolophus ancestors
My last point about the episode is where they show where the Parasaurolophus evolved into a "more advanced" race, the Voth in this instance. This evolutionary idea that should the dinosaurs have survived the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous (minus birds of course), they had the potential to evolve into a humanoid species. This is not a new concept to Star Trek. Back in 1982, (Russell and Séguin) proposed a similar idea while studying the troodontid Stenonychosaurus.
Reconstructions of the small Cretaceous theropod Stenonychosaurus inequalis and a hypothetical dinosaurid (Russell and Séguin, 1982)
While being a bit tongue in cheek, it has prompted discussion about the possibilities of future evolution of the non-avian dinosaurs ever since.
So, however you see it, this episode was a dinosaur wonderland.
Russell, D. A., and Séguin, R., 1982, Reconstructions of the small Cretaceous theropod Stenonychosaurus inequalis and a hypothetical dinosaurid: Syllogeus, v. 37, p. 1-43
Continuing on with the Star Trek geological entries is Voyager again.
While doing some geological analysis down in a cave looking for dilithium (a fake mineral in the Star Trek universe), Chakotay, Kim, and Neelix are doing various geological scans of the cave including a "geo-strato analysis". Eventually Neelix is attacked and Tuvok and Janeway travel down to the caves where they discover an excessively warm bit of rock. According to Tuvok "There are no natural geological phenomena that could be creating this heat source," prompting the team to fire their phasers on it.
And the last of the Star Trek: Enterprise entries is a paleontological mention.
From Season 4, episode 19 "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II", the crew is in the Mirror Universe and is being attacked by the infamous Gorn from the Original Series. While they are trying to figure out what did it they comment that they had "traces of reptilian saliva in the ... wounds" and the bite radius indicates a reptile that is more than 2 meters in length. When asked if this was a pet, the response was "Unless one of them owned a velociraptor, I find it extremely unlikely."
Gorn from Star Trek: The Original Series. Image courtesy of Memory-Alpha.
Gorn from Star Trek: Enterprise. Image courtesy of Memory-Alpha.
Another instance of geological references in Star Trek: Enterprise.
This time, while hunting through a series of caves for a set of lost geologists, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed decides upon which way to go by looking at some crystals on the wall. When he sees them he points and states "If I was a geologist, that's the way I would go."
Continuing on the Star Trek theme is Star Trek: Enterprise with the first of a few geological references.
In this episode Captain Archer is talking about a planet that has the potential to become "covered in erupting volcanoes by the end of the week," in which Trip replies "some geologic fireworks, could be fun."
As mentioned in the last post, Star Trek has had numerous geological and paleontological references over the years. Here is one from Deep Space 9.
The plot of this scene follows Dr. Julian Bashir playing a holosuite game pretending to be a geologist/spy. The scene has great geological call outs like "He would be very interested in meeting my husband, he's one of the leading geologists in the world" and "Baccarat and geology are my life."
Star Trek has had numerous geological and paleontological references over the years. Here is just one of them.
From Star Trek: Voyager, Season 6 Episode 8 "One Small Step" during which Chakotay waxes that "Paleontology was always my first love" and "I knew I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was 6."
