History Main / DumbDinos

* ''Literature/DinosaurPlanet'': The quasi-alien dinosaurs fit the stupid, swamp-dwelling model of dinosaurs.
* In "A Gun for Dinosaur" by Creator/LSpragueDeCamp, the dinosaurs' stupidity makes hunting them difficult due to the small size of their skulls. Because they have no memory, it's easy to escape their attention by hiding -- they'll simply forget about you. In "The Cayeuse", another de Camp story, a ''Parasaurolophus'' mistakes a car's exhaust for a mating scent...''and tries to mate with the car''. (In real life, it's believed that ''Parasaurolophus'' [[ScienceMarchesOn used mating calls as opposed to scents]].)

* In ''WesternAnimation/WereBackADinosaursStory'', the pre-anthropomorphized dinosaurs, Rex in particular, are portrayed as stupid and mindlessly violent. Even Elsa and Dweeb, a ''Pteranodon'' and ''Parasaurolophus'' respectively, which wouldn't be much threatening in real life. They are later returned to this state by the film's BigBad. How intelligent they are when evolved is up to debate, as they all behave like extremely innocent three-year old kids. Granted, [[TheHero Rex]] and [[WomenAreWiser Elsa]] are a tad more eloquent than [[TooDumbToLive Dweeb]] and [[FatIdiot Woog]].

[[DiscreditedTrope This trope is generally associated with older works]] and is becoming increasingly rare after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_renaissance the Dinosaur Renaissance]] revamped the popular image of dinosaurs, spawning the likes of ''Film/JurassicPark'', but it does still occasionally pop up every now and again. These days, however, it's far more likely to be PlayedForLaughs as opposed to serious fiction.

* Like the film above, ''Literature/JurassicPark'' averts the trope with comparatively realistic dinosaur behavior and, in particular, the dangerously intelligent ''Velociraptors''.

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'': The various dinosaurs and Mesozoic reptiles generally aren't very bright compared to the mammal protagonists, and most of them can't talk.

** Rudy the ''Baryonyx'' and the mother ''T. rex'' in ''[[WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnofTheDinosaurs Dawn of the Dinosaurs]]'' are portrayed as a fair bit smarter than most -- the ''T. rex'' eventually befriends the main characters while Rudy is smart enough to hold a mutual grudge with Buck. The ''Guanlong'' and pterosaurs, however, can be seen as dumb, mostly from their predatory instincts overriding their awareness of something unpleasant or fault happening. For instance, a pterosaur in the pack that chases Buck, Crash and Eddie on their pterodactyl later defeats himself by flying right up to the mammals in an otherwise dumb decision due to his own instincts. Ironically, the ''Troodon'' (commonly viewed as intelligent) are depicted as total screwballs with googly eyes.

Compare PrehistoricMonster, which it often overlaps with, and FrazettaMan, in which prehistoric humans are demonized and their intelligence downplayed. DoofyDodo and UnwiseOwl apply to stupid and/or comedic dodos and owls (ironically another kind of dinosaurs, as far as science is concerned). DogsAreDumb and MooseAreIdiots are similar tropes applying to domestic dogs and moose respectively. A subtrope of ArtisticLicensePaleontology and HistoricalDowngrade.[[note]]After all, dinosaurs as a group dominated the food chain for 180 million years. All of history since then is only 65 million years. If dinosaurs were actually TooDumbToLive, how the hell did they manage to live for that long?[[/note]]

Compare PrehistoricMonster, which it often overlaps with, and FrazettaMan, in which prehistoric humans are demonized and their intelligence downplayed. DoofyDodo applies to stupid and/or comedic dodos (ironically another kind of dinosaur, as far as science is concerned). DogsAreDumb and MooseAreIdiots are similar tropes applying to domestic dogs and moose respectively. A subtrope of ArtisticLicensePaleontology and HistoricalDowngrade.[[note]]After all, dinosaurs as a group dominated the food chain for 180 million years. All of history since then is only 65 million years. If dinosaurs were actually TooDumbToLive, how the hell did they manage to live for that long?[[/note]]

* Ironically, since they are dinosaurs themselves, birds were also victims of this trope. The common scientific consensus in older times was that birds were unintelligent due to the way their brains looked, hence the term "birdbrain" coming to mean "stupid person". We now know many birds are fairly clever, as with non-avian dinosaurs, and even highly intelligent in the case of parrots and corvids.

* The "saurs" in "The Measure of All Things", "Bronte's Egg", and "In Tibor's Cardboard Castle" are bio-engineered dinosaurs created and sold as living toys for children. They fell out of fashion as their human owners grew up, most released into the wild died, and the surviving ones live in a home for genetically engineered pets. As it turns out, the saurs [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman are both highly intelligent]] (one even writing a novel) and painfully aware that they were abandoned. Their problems with surviving in the wild come less from stupidity and more from problems that would [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome naturally happen]] to tame animals raised by people and not used to danger, like death from exposure or being killed by wild animals.

* Ironically, since they are dinosaurs themselves, birds were also victims of this trope. The common scientific consensus in older times was that birds were unintelligent due to the way their brains looked, hence the term "birdbrain" coming to mean "stupid person". We now know many birds are fairly clever, and even highly intelligent in the case of parrots and corvids.

** Cretaceous and Maelstrom in ''[[WesternAnimation/IceAgeTheMeltdown The Meltdown]]'', identified as the sea crocodile ''Metriorhynchus'' and the giant ichthyosaur ''Shastasaurus'' respectively, are more brutish and hungry forces of nature than characters.

** Rudy the ''Baryonyx'' and the mother ''T. rex'' in ''[[WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnofTheDinosaurs Dawn of the Dinosaurs]]'' are portrayed as a fair bit smarter than most -- the ''T. rex'' eventually befriends the main characters while Rudy is smart enough to hold a mutual grudge with Buck. The most dumb ones are the troodons.
The guanlongs and pterosaurs also can be seen as dumb, mostly from their predatory instincts overriding their awareness of something unpleasant or fault happening. For instance, a pterosaur in the pack that chases Buck, Crash and Eddie on their pteranodon later defeats himself by flying right up to the mammals in an otherwise dumb decision due to his own instincts.