The bird/dinosaur connection

[Oviraptor]

As you may or may not know, recent dna evidence shows that birds and dinosaurs are actually closer than previously thought. So close in fact, that some scientists are classifying birds as a surving clade of therapod dinosaurs.

With the amazing and beautiful variety or birds that we have in this world I often wonder if dinosaurs had such variety in coloring and behavior.

When I look at some birds like hornbills and ostriches I can definitely see some sort of connection. I would imagine that dinosaurs behaved in a similar fashion and in some cases even looked similar to these birds.

Then again, when I look at the cockatiel perched on my shoulder I have a hard time imagining that one of his closest relatives is an extinct 2-story giant that could easily rip my face off.


What is everyone elses thoughts about the whole connection between avian and dinosaur?

[dustbunny86]

Yep, in both my evolution and comparative vertebrate anatomy courses we discussed all the similarities between the theropods and birds. In fact, I even chose that as my research paper. Most evidence does indicate that birds are a clade which branched from the theropods.

[SDavid]

"What is everyone elses thoughts about the whole connection between avian and dinosaur? "

I find the subject very interesting. Has anyone seen the documentary on reverse engineering a dinosaur from a bird? The documentary discusses what makes certain traits disappear over time and why. It goes on to explain how they can (in a lab) trigger or activate present but dormant genes and cause these traits to reappear. For example, "teeth" or lack of feathers. In a lab they activated the gene that caused teeth to grow in birds and were able to produce baby chicks with small teeth. They actually showed this.

I'm summarizing, but the premise was that if they continue along those lines they can keep activating genes present in birds that stopped producing certain traits and and eventually end up with something closer to a dinosaur.

It was a fascinatind doc. It was on a few months ago but I don't know the name or who made it. If anyone has seen it maybe they could describe it better than me.

But I see the connection too especially when I go to the bird section of the Bronx Zoo. Some of the birds look so primitive.

[cockatiel92]

yes i actually saw that with the chicks. its intresting that the teeth gene can be activated so easily. now imagine that theres some disturbance in the environment that triggers this GENE that creates a new species. for example an ostich with teeth. it can easily happen we have done so many thing to harm the evironment with out knowing the future consiquences. i also think that they made the chickens feathers change as well but all these test were done on an embreo the never let it actually hatch on its own. they were afraid that the teeth gene could also activate a gene for a meat eating behavior.

[Oviraptor]

Shame. It would have been kinda neat to see what the chick would have looked like as an adult.

I went to the Milwaukee County Zoo this weekend and was watching the african ground hornbill and the flamingos. The hornbill even looks somewhat saurian and I can easily imagine that some species of dinosaurs looked and behaved similar.

The flamingos? Well, they certainly look weird, but they're really alot of fun to watch. I can definitely see them having some sort of dinosaur counterpart many years past.

[macawlover]

Well I've always said that newly-hatched chicks look like little dinosaurs... :P

[Ashling]

Newly hatched chicks are veleciraptors!

[mayaexquisite]

I remembered learning a long time ago that birds are descendants of dinosaurs but never gave it much thought after that. Someone posted this in another forum and thought it was so interesting. There are five parts, each less than 10 minutes. Watch them all because it's soooooo interesting!!

Here is the documentary the others above are probably referring to...

YouTube - Dinosaur to bird evolution 1of5

[NoLimitssjca]

Thanks for posting the link to that. I just watched the whole series. Very intriguing.

[Ashling]

For my theme in my art course this year, I am doing "manipulation of evolution" and one of my pieces might be birds reverting back to having arms instead of wings- looking a bit like modern archeopteryx. Either way, I often think of Ash as a dinosaur with feathers :)