What Is a Bird?

The fearsome Tyrannosaurs and the tall sauropods are already gone, but the dinosaurs continue to thrive among us. We are talking about birds, of course, but it is not clear why we should consider birds to be approved dinos. Here are many reasons.

Make no mistake, the birds are official dinosaurs, not other shoots. All non-avian dinosaurs were extinct following the asteroid destruction that occurred 66 million years ago, but other species of birds — perhaps birds of prey-He can survive, and he does it was not too late taking where their brethren had gone.

“The young people singing outside your window are the dinosaurs we have left these days,” Adam Smith, director of the Campbell Geology Museum at Clemson University, explained in an email. “Birds are just one species of dinosaur. To say that ‘birds come from dinosaurs’ is similar to to say that humans evolved from animals. In short, all birds are dinosaurs, but not all dinosaurs are birds. ”

The birds in some way connected with dinosaurs was not a recent revelation. In the late 1800’s, English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley boldly asserted that birds evolved from dinosaurs. As science writer Riley Black he wrote in 2010, his theory about the origin of birds “did not fully anticipate what we know so far,” but Huxley, a well-known anatomist, was clear on some points.

Indeed, scientists have found many species of birds that look like dinosaurs in a phylogenetic tree. Kate Lyons, an assistant professor at the Lincoln School of Biological Science at the University of Nebraska, says there is no “single smoking gun” that allows archaeologists to speculate on birds and dinosaurs, as there are “several evidence” to prove this in the end, as she emails me .

Paleontologist Steven Brussatte of the University of Edinburgh says that we know that birds and dinosaurs using the same ideas tell us bats and animals.

“Yes, the birds are small, and they have feathers, wings, and flying, and this is very different from the picture of the dinosaurs we are used to,” he wrote in an email. “The bat is a mammalian figure – it’s small, it has wings, and it flies, and it doesn’t look like a dog or elephant or monkey, but it is still a mammal.”

Of course, bats have many animal systems, such as hair, teeth, small bones, and the ability to feed babies milk. Similarly, birds have a pattern that is only seen in theropod dinosaurs, Brussatte explained.

Like feathers.

In fact, while there are no “smoking guns” for birds like dinosaurs, the presence of feathers is probably the most smoking thing of all. Ancient inscriptions are full of examples of non-avian non-avian dinosaurs, and because feathers are different from birds, scientists are able to link them all together like dinosaurs.

Skeptics can claim that the extinction of feathers in both birds and non-dinosaurs is a result of flexible flexibility, in which similar conditions are self-evident in inconsistent colors. Smith argues that the evolutionary process is unlikely to happen because “most of the non-avian dinosaurs found with feathers protected by real pre-existing species, pretending to be relatives,” including The Velociraptors and Sinosauropteryx.

He added: “Feathers are hard to make, and while mutations often bring about the same – and even all animals – look the same, there are no examples of similar mutations in size, and such fidelity.”

Phylogenetics — the study of the evolutionary relationship between species — provides further evidence that birds and dinosaurs, such as Andre Rowe, a PhD student at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, explained in an email. With all due respect to Jurassic Park, archaeologists may not be able to identify and analyze the dinosaur’s ancient DNA, but they may be able to study the similarities between living things as their bones and bodies show. Based on this, scientists “can say with certainty that birds belong to the dinosaur line,” said Rowe, referring to dinosaurs eating predators such as T. rex, Allosaurus, and Compsognathus. More importantly, the skeletal remains of birds and birds do not show “sudden changes in their evolutionary relationships, but unchanging changes over millions of years,” he added.

Kristi Curry Rogers, an independent expert at Macalester College in Minnesota, wrote in an email: “When we go back in time, we can tell how the original body of birds changed.” Like dinosaurs, birds move their legs around their bodies, and dinos also inspire birds. growing up. “

Holly Woodward Ballard, an assistant professor of paleontology and anatomy at the University of Oklahoma, said: “We know that birds are dinosaurs because they are more endangered and endangered dinosaurs than any other animal.”

Of course, there are many other things to consider – such things as “voluntary bones, extruded bones, and hands that can rotate,” allowing dinosaurs to “fold their arms against their bodies,” according to Brussatte.

In an email, paleontologist and biologist Jessica Theodor of the University of Calgary explained this and other dino issues. For example, a design that allows birds to flap their hands back and forth, which folds their wings, is also found in the hands without wings coelurosaurs, and biologists are able to determine how this mutation has been modified “through theropod evolution,” he explained.

Kat Schroeder, a PhD student in the Department of Biology at the University of New Mexico, described the combination of certain vertebrae in synsacrum and pygostyle as one of the most important factors in bird evolution.

“Synsacrum is a joint of the pelvic bones, which hardens the back and helps to escape, and pygostyle is a mixture of end-to-end pus that supports tail feathers, which are also found in other non-avian dinosaurs such as Oviraptorosaurs and Ornithomimosaurs which probably had feather lovers instead of long tails or fans at the ends of their tails, ”he wrote in an email.

“Birds have small ribs in their ribs, called immunosuppressants, which help to breathe the rib cage,” and they are also found oviraptors and it works, as Theodor explained. In addition, “bird bones have some dinosaurs-like structures in the bones, all of which are grouped together for phylogenetic analysis,” he said.

Proof of hugging among other dinosaurs, how animals rest on their nests to keep their eggs warm and protected, is what is seen in modern birds, as Rowe reminded me. In addition, dinosaurs and birds all use gizzard stones (stones that are swallowed to help digest food), “the way stones help digest food that has already been absorbed,” he said.

As I said earlier, scientists may not learn about the ancient DNA dinosaur, but they can learn about the modern dinosaur.

“Evidence to show that birds and small dinosaurs have learned to fly comes from dead dinosaur fossils as well as the bodies and bodies of living bird species,” said Curry Rogers. “When we look at modern birds, we see a few memories of their most dangerous history trapped inside their genes — advanced programs to build long tails and teeth.”

And he added: “Well done there – inscribed in the bones and bodies of dinosaurs, living and extinct!”

So the next time a hummingbird arrives at your feeder, feel free to greet a small bird like a visiting dinosaur. You could also say that you tasted dinosaurs after eating some chicken wings, or that you were caught by a dinosaur when the goose scared you away from its nest. And when the Blue Jays are fighting the Baltimore Orioles, it’s best to refer to matchup as a dinos war.

It may sound strange, but you have the science to help you.