Dale Alan Russell (27 December 1937 – 21 December 2019) was an American-Canadian geologist and palaeontologist. Throughout his career Russell worked as the Curator of Fossil Vertebrates at the

Canadian Museum of Nature The Canadian Museum of Nature (; CMN) is a national museums of Canada, national natural history museum based in Canada's National Capital Region (Canada), National Capital Region. The museum's exhibitions and public programs are housed in the Vi ...

, Research Professor at the Department of Marine Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (MEAS) at

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...

, and Senior Paleontologist at the

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (NCMNS) is a natural history museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. The museum is the oldest in the state, and the largest natural history museum in the Southeastern United States. The museum is made up o ...

. Dinosaurs he has described include ''

Daspletosaurus ''Daspletosaurus'' ( ; meaning "frightful lizard") is a genus of tyrannosaurid dinosaur that lived in Laramidia between about 77 and 74.4 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period. The genus ''Daspletosaurus'' contains three named ...

'' and ''

Dromiceiomimus ''Dromiceiomimus'' is a genus of ornithomimid theropod from the Late Cretaceous (early Maastrichtian) of Alberta, Canada. The type species, ''D. brevitertius'', is considered a synonym of ''Ornithomimus edmontonicus'' by some authors, while othe ...

'', and he was amongst the first paleontologists to consider an extraterrestrial cause (supernova, comet, asteroid) for the

Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, also known as the K–T extinction, was the extinction event, mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth approximately 66 million years ago. The event cau ...

. Russell also helped lead the

China-Canada Dinosaur Project The China-Canada Dinosaur Project (Standard Chinese, Chinese: 中国-加拿大恐龙计划; Pinyin: ''Zhōngguó-jiānádà kǒnglóng jìhuà''; also known as ''Sino-Canadian Dinosaur Project'') was a six-year series of paleontology, palaeontol ...

from 1986 to 1991. In 1982, Russell created the "

dinosauroid The dinosauroid is a Speculative evolution, hypothetical species created by Dale A. Russell in 1982. Russell theorized that if a dinosaur such as ''Stenonychosaurus'' had not perished in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, its descendants ...

thought experiment A thought experiment is an imaginary scenario that is meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory. It is often an experiment that would be hard, impossible, or unethical to actually perform. It can also be an abstract hypothetical that is ...

, which speculated an evolutionary path for ''

Troodon ''Troodon'' ( ; ''Troödon'' in older sources) is a controversial genus of relatively small, bird-like theropod dinosaurs definitively known from the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous period (about 77 million years ago). It includes at l ...

'' if it had not gone extinct in the

66 million years ago, and had instead evolved into an intelligent being. Russell commissioned a model of his dinosauroid by artist Ron Seguin, and the concept became popular. Various later anthropologists have continued Russell's speculations about intelligent ''Troodon''-like dinosaurs, though they often find his original idea too anthropomorphic.Jeff Hecht (9 July 2007)
"Smartasaurus"
. ''Cosmos Magazine''. Retrieved 1 June 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, Dale American paleontologists Canadian paleontologists 1937 births 2019 deaths North Carolina State University faculty Scientists from California Scientists from San Francisco 20th-century American geologists 20th-century Canadian geologists 21st-century American geologists 21st-century Canadian geologists