Birds are dinosaurs?

[Crebain]

http://www.apple.com/pro/video/naturalhistory/

Interesting article on reptile/bird evolution.

[The Outlaw]

I have known this for a very long time. You need only see them consume their own offspring to have that flash before your eyes.

THE OUTLAW

[Franciscus]

Interesting read. I had read about birds decending from dinosaurs before. When you see unfeathered baby parrots there are some definite similarities to dinosaurs. The blood of birds is also similar to lizards, as well as the fact that they lay eggs.

[PArRoT_CrAzy11]

Have they actually proven that this was a transitional creature? It is simply theory.

[Monica]

It is simple theory, and though I have not read that article, I did do a paper on it (though uh... never finished it....).

There are theories that birds evolved from dinosaurs because of the many different things that connect birds and dinosaurs. They are not sure if birds develloped from flying dinosours, from running dinosours, or a combination of both. They suspect however that it is more probable that birds stem from the runners. Feathers do not fossilize well, though birds do have scales on their feet. Fossils of dinosaurs have been found with what seems to be feathery shafts, hollowing bones, and a mouth that resembles closely to that of birds. I myself do not doubt that birds could have come from anything else beyong dinosaurs. It is however possible that there were stems of birds from dinosaurs that went into 'dead ends', or rather they became extinct while others thrived.

If you would like to read up more about it, follow these links
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...aeopteryx.html
http://www.worthynews.com/news-featu...sing-link.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/events/98/dinosaurs/

[HareTrinity]

My parents both got their degrees in biology, so I, too, have known about it for a while...

An interesting recent find, apparently, was a T-rex fossil... Dino skeleton that was covered in feathers...

Also, there have been real finds of part-reptile, part-bird, fossils (quite a few fake ones too, but one of the first real ones found had been joined to another to create a fake one; very interesting story).

Let's not forget that some dinos had beaks.

Personally, I think ostriches look very much like some of the predator dinosaurs (e.g. velociraptors).

They recently found some preserved T-rex blood, apparently; closest genetic match was with ostriches.

Definitely an interesting subject.