V/O: 65 million years ago a massive meteorite emerged from space, and ploughed into the Earth. The cataclysmic event is what most scientists believe wiped out the dinosaurs.

V/O: But what if the meteorite... had missed?

V/O: If the dinosaurs hadn't died out, none of the mammals we are familiar with would have been able to evolve. So there's every reason to expect that dinosaurs like Protoceratops would have become the farm animals of today.

FARMER: They're a very easy animal to look after, they virtually farm themselves. As a resource it's a great animal. You've got the eggs to start with, incredibly nutritious. You've got the meat, which is absolutely fantastic and the hide is very versatile.

DON LESSEM: I really welcome the idea, grisly as it sounds, of trying Protoceratops meat. Ostrich, quite lean, very tasty. Why not Protoceratops?

V/O: Tasty meat with the added bonus of eggs. You don't get that with a mammal!

DON LESSEM: A dozen Protoceratops eggs would fill up a large carton, and they'd be just as nutritious and twice in volume if not more of any other eggs we're used to eating. We also know that they laid twenty or more eggs at a time. So, to think about, this is a decent harvest.

DON LESSEM: We domesticated the animals that lived alongside us, when civilization rose up thousands of years ago. There's no reason why - were dinosaurs the living counterparts of mammals then - we wouldn't have tried to domesticate them.

V/O: If we'd turned Protoceratops into a farm animal, it's safe to assume we'd have turned dinosaurs into pets too. Instead of cats and dogs we'd have Sauropods in our homes, or at least in our gardens.

MOTHER: Phil? You're gonna have to get a spade!

MOTHER: Dino's done a mess on the lawn again.

KRISTI CURRY-ROGERS: Having dinosaurs as pets would be a lot of fun and potentially dangerous for small children.

KRISTI CURRY-ROGERS: We probably would have favoured small dinosaurs to have in our homes. They probably would have been fairly messy and probably not smelt too good. My favourite pet dinosaur would be a small sauropod.

MUM: Olivia! Come on, I've told you before, don't feed him at the table please!

DAD: Dino! Bed!!

V/O: Could dinosaurs have adapted to urban life? Some of the cleverer ones might have fared quite well.

LARRY WITMER: The idea of cognition - to be able to solve problems, or to work things out - is kind of what we're interested in. And certainly it would seem like, with Troodon, it's got, potentially, the structure of the brain that would allow it to have that kind of capability. If Troodon were around today, co-existing with humans, we'd probably call it a pest.

NEWSREADER: Thirty years ago it would have been unheard of, but today there's estimated to be an average of four breeding pairs per square mile of every town and city in the UK. Opportunist or urban menace? Paraic O'Brien reports on the urbanization of the Troodon.

REPORTER: A peaceful, suburban street in London. Well appearances can be deceptive. Take a look at this.

REPORTER: Just a few evenings ago, a pair of Troodons filmed scavenging for scraps in a local resident's dustbin.

LARRY WITMER: This is the kind of animal, much as we see with a fox or a coyote, but actually would probably live quite well with humans. Actually get into our garbage or into our chicken coops or whatever it might be. This might be the kind of animal that would actually capitalise on human settlements and actually make a living.

REPORTER: At the moment there's this argument that something should be done to control the numbers of these creatures - even talk of a cull. The people who want to see a control on the numbers cite property damage as a reason why that should happen. And with CCTV, the full extent of their nocturnal activity is only now becoming apparent.

REPORTER: However you feel about these creatures, one thing is for certain: they're here to stay.

V/O: Of course, a lot of evolving can happen in 65 million years. If dinosaurs had survived, they would have changed. They might have become... like us!

SIMON CONWAY MORRIS: The human is extraordinarily well designed. Our whole arrangement is actually designed for a particular mode of life which, as you can see, looking around us, is incredibly successful. There are lots of different, if you like, designs out there in the natural world, but the humanoid is a really good design. If it's such a good solution for us, is it so difficult to imagine that it could be a good solution for a dinosaur, therefore a Dinosauroid? I don't see why not.

V/O: But not everyone agrees.

KRISTI CURRY-ROGERS: I doubt seriously that any dinosaur would ever end up looking like a person. And it is fairly arrogant to think that the end point of all evolutionary trajectories should sort of emulate human beings.

V/O: The idea of 21st century dinosaurs is great fun, but ultimately fanciful... isn't it?

BRENT BREITHAUPT: Here we have two tracks that we recently made. This one here preserves the three toe impressions - the tridactal impressions - of the foot of the dinosaurs, the small to medium-sized Theropod dinosaurs that lived up there. Now over here we have one that we just got from this site. Again a nice tridactal footprint, again very well preserved. If we compare both of these casts we can see these particular tracks look very, very much the same.

V/O: But these footprints are not those of a dinosaur that died over 65 million years ago. These are only a few hours old. They belong to an Emu!

V/O: Indeed, not all dinosaurs did become extinct. Their descendants are doing very well today, it's just that we don't call them dinosaurs any more.

PHIL CURRIE: My favourite dinosaur by far is probably the chicken.

KRISTI CURRY-ROGERS: My favourite dinosaur is an owl.

V/O: We eat them, farm them and hunt them. Who knows? You may even own a dinosaur as a pet!