Binocular Vision in a Dinosaur like a Troodon
Binocular vision is the ability to direct both eyes simultaneously at an object. In considering the evolution of man it was coupled with manipulating hands in early primates and is considered basic to the development of intelligence. The importance of this ability for the growth of the brain is that it allows a better judgment of distance, valuable for leaping and throwing. It stimulates three dimensional thinking. The evolution of manufacturing levels of intelligence requires the development of hand and eye coordination. Without the ability to see stereoscopically, it seems unlikely that it would be possible to think stereoscopically and thereby to erect structures in the mind prior to building them on the ground. Many creatures alive today besides man have binocular vision, birds of prey like the owl, for instance, but they do not often combine it with grasping hands.
Binocular vision in tyrannosaurus was facilitated by the snout being very narrow so as not to impair its line of sight. But tyrannosaurus, as we have seen, had atrophied arms and the real evolutionary advantage comes when the binocular vision is combined with skillful hands. The troodon (stenonychosaurus) had binocular vision combined with manipulative hands and fingers. Its eyes were large and well developed like the eyes of the ostrich—which has the largest eyes of any terrestrial creature alive today. This in itself is an interesting feature because it suggests that these dinosaurs were nocturnal or that they had evolved not long before from a nocturnal form.
Two points from this. First, it is further evidence, should anyone need convincing, that the dinosaurs were warm-blooded, because cold-blooded animals must be inactive at night. Second, what would they be hunting at night time that needed speed, agility, keen vision and grasping hands? None other than our predecessors, the mammals. Desmond puts it like this:
It was not until the Cretaceous that we find signs that the mammals were hounded even into the night. They were terrorized, moreover, by creatures more cunning than themselves.
Yes, the mammals were small, but these dinosaurs were also small by dinosaur standards—stenonychosaurus was only about five feet long including its long tail. Here then is a dinosaur with keen senses, nimble and agile enough to hunt, by night, the supposedly superior mammals!
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