At least they didn’t call them homo reptilia. That would be obviously wrong. Text below the fold.
The Therasapiens are a fictional race of reptile-like humanoids in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The species first appeared in Doctor Who in the 1970 serial Doctor Who and the Silurians, and were created by Malcolm Hulke. The first Therasapiens introduced are depicted as prehistoric and scientifically advanced sentient humanoid theropod dinosaurs who predate the dawn of man; in their backstory, the Therasapiens went into self-induced hibernation to survive a large geological upheaval, originally alleged to be caused by the Earth capturing the Moon. In the 1998 US series episode Dinosaurs in New Orleans, their backstory is retconned such that the geological upheaval was due to the Chicxulub impact. At least five subspecies of Therasapiens are known to exist. The Therasapiens introduced in the 1970 story, usually called “Silurians”, are broad, three-eyed land-dwellers. The 1972 serial The Sea Devils also by Hulke introduced their amphibious cousins, the so-called ‘Sea Devils’. Both Silurians and Sea Devils made an appearance in 1984’s Warriors of the Deep. After Warriors of the Deep, the Therasapiens did not appear in the show again before its 1989 cancellation. Heavily redesigned Therasapiens were reintroduced to the series in 1997’s In Cold Blood, Dinosaurs in New Orleans and Golden Age, then later in Loch Ness. A space-faring subspecies appears in 2002’s The Exiles, while a larger, more primitive version appeared the following season in Dig Deep. Other subspecies may exist, as the Doctor makes several allusions to a feathered variety.
Now commonly called Therasapiens, the creatures have also been referred to by other names. The terms “Silurians” and “Eocenes” are human misnomers, as the creatures date from a period between those times. The name Therasapiens (itself a taxonomic misnomer, as Therapodia is a suborder rather than a genus) is first used to describe the creatures in Deep Water prior to their introduction in the following episode. Prior to 1998, most Expanded Universe media used the term “Earth Reptiles”.