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> "It was not a bird, but a dinosaur that was a close relative of birds." I know it would lead to confusion in the article, but birds are classified as dinosau
by yareally 10y ago
> "It was not a bird, but a dinosaur that was a close relative of birds."
I know it would lead to confusion in the article, but birds are classified as dinosaurs. However, there are many groups of dinosaurs and each classified by their evolutionary traits. Birds just happen to be the only group that survived to the present day. If dinosaurs are a superset of many species, birds would be a subset of them.
The interesting aspect is they found one that had evolved just enough to have a beak, but retained many of the characteristics of more primitive dinosaurs. Many dinosaurs not considered birds also had feathers, so that's not overly significant alone.
That said, countries like New Zealand had birds that went down a pretty similar evolutionary path that lived up until 700 or so years ago[1]. New Zealand is a pretty interesting place evolution wise. It answers the question of how birds would evolve if not exposed to any other major mammalian predators for centuries.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moa
- dogma1138 10y agoMany dinosaurs also did not had feathers, some had scales, some had skin closet to mammals, and at least some were likeky warm blooded. Birds are only part of a single branch of the tree of dinosaurs, and currently it's more than likely that most dinosaurs did not had feathers and are not really related to birds in any particular manner.
- yareally 10y agoIf you had citations for any of that, I would love to read it. Birds have been scientifically classified as dinosaurs for at least the past 20 or so years[1] and many (obviously not modern ones) lived in parallel to other dinosaur species in the late Cretaceous Period. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avialae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avialae
- dogma1138 10y agoAll birds are dinosaurs not all dinosaurs are birds, birds evolved from Theropods, there are other orders and suborders which were an evolutionary deadened and had nothing to do with birds. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theropoda https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theropoda
- yareally 10y agoFrom my first comment: > "If dinosaurs are a superset of many species, birds would be a subset of them."
- dogma1138 10y agoBirds are a subset of many species of dinosaurs but from one specific subgroup I wasn't contradicting you but some people think that all dinosaurs had feathers and are related to birds that is not the case. The feather thing was also known considerably earlier than people think as early as Darwin people published books about birds being related to some dinosaurs since we had very early feathered and winged fossils.
- yareally 10y agoAh okay. Wasn't sure what you were leading to in your previous comments. I'm in agreement with you after your clarifications though :)
- jonchang 10y agoWhile we're clarifying nomenclature, I'd like to point out that "primitive" is to be avoided, as it may imply that a trait is simpler, inferior, or less adaptive, perpetuating the "ladder of progress" misconception of evolution. "Ancestral" is preferred and should always be applied to traits rather than taxa, e.g., "Tongtianlong limosus retained many ancestral characteristics of older dinosaurs"
- yareally 10y agoGood point. I didn't think about that aspect. I'm only an amateur biologist, so didn't consider the wording. Ironically, I would consider a beak more primitive until the engineer in me screams teeth could be a sign of over engineering--not that I would personally give up my good (but high maintenance) teeth for a beak. Could probably write a entire book on "evolutionarily traits and trends for engineers."
- jonchang 10y agoAbsolutely-it's important to consider the selective environment that a trait evolved in and evaluate all possible tradeoffs. You can see this in certain fishes where pharyngeal jaws permit eating hard prey (new food source!) but also increase the processing time for soft prey (bad if you're competing against critters that eat faster). Beaks are good for some reasons and teeth for others.
- avip 10y agoYou may enjoy "principles of animal locomotion" - it's pretty engineering focused.
- vilhelm_s 10y agoSure, but that does not contradict the statement in the article, right? Some dinosaurs are birds, but this one was not.
- yareally 10y agoCorrect, but the language throughout article would likely lead a reader to assume birds are not part of the dinosaur family, since it's never implied that birds are dinosaurs either. Pesky implicits can be a pain in more than just programming sometimes.
- vilhelm_s 10y agoIt does state "Oviraptorosaurs are not direct ancestors of birds, but share a common theropod dinosaur ancestor with the lineage that later evolved to birds."
- questionr 10y agoI wonder how this resurrection project is coming along http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1113874-the-frightening-discovery-of-the-mount-owen-claw/ http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1113874-the-frightening-disc... Also, would anyone have any good theories as to why dinosaurs evolved feathers? and from what did it evolve from? was it hair?
- yareally 10y agoI believe feathers evolved from scales. I think they were first beneficial for dinosaurs for their likely elaborate courtship/mating rituals if birds are any indicator of how other dinosaurs found mates. Early feathers weren't useful for flying, keeping warm or making a creature look bigger, so I would figure the advantage that made them useful was related to mating.
- notadoc 10y agoThe moa foot just looks like what you'd imagine a dinosaur foot to look like, doesn't it? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Moa_foot.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Moa_foot...