I liked Connor the dino-geek as well! He always seemed to bouncy and enthusiastic about it. But I was thinking this afternoon after I posted this, and When you actually list the occasions when either Cutter or Connor have indentified creatures, Cutter always tends to be right, and Connor frequently turns out to be wrong, or at least only partly right. In 1.2 he ws right about the creature, but wrong about the 'mostly harmless' (although he did come up with the goods when he remembered they were burrowers and found the tunnel later). 2.5, as you say, there was the Silurian business, when he was wrong about the size of the bugs.

They certainly weren't in competition with each other, skill-wise, but I think it was simply a case that Connor needed something that was 'his' rather than just being a lesser version of Cutter. But he does do a decent job as backup for those occasions when Cutter isn't around.