FYI: the saurians are dinosaurs because of a Chinese pun

the saurians are descendants of the ancient dragon race, which devolved into less intelligent creatures at the same time humans flourished. Confusingly, despite the dinosaur appearance and nicknames, it's made clear that the saurians are actually dragons.

Explanation:

In Chinese the term for dinosaurs (恐龍) is made of the characters for 'fear' and 'dragon'. Literally meaning: 'frightening dragon'.

Additionally, specific dinosaur species (e.g. pterodactyl) are not termed using the characters for 'frightening dragon', but simply 'dragon'. So in Chinese they are able to call the saurians 'dragons' without having massive cognitive dissonance.

There you have it, that's how the saurians can be thought of as dinosaurs and dragons at the same time.