5 ms·
Pelicans seem to evolve from pterosaurs but ostriches seem to have come from theropods. Since those are both birds, I would guess pterosaurs and theropods are j
by comesee 8y ago
Pelicans seem to evolve from pterosaurs but ostriches seem to have come from theropods. Since those are both birds, I would guess pterosaurs and theropods are just as closely related as pelicans and ostriches.
- quotemstr 8y agoI'm really curious about where you learned that.
- comesee 8y agoNatural history museum in LA. They have a big exhibit on theropods and pterosaurs and show the birds that possibly evolved from them. Birds are dinosaurs under all the usual biological classification schemes. Similar phenotypes, similar genotypes.
- nickserv 8y agoAre you sure it was "evolved from" and not "looks like"? Because pterosaurs have no living descents, and all birds descended from therapod dinosaurs (even if birds were already widespread before the end of the Cretaceous).
- comesee 8y agoYeah it might seem that way but pelicans don't come from pterosaurs.
- bbgm 8y agoNot quite. Birds, in general, appear to have evolved from a subset of theropods. They are in the same clade. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_06 https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_0... https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/50-million-years-of-incredible-shrinking-theropod-dinosaurs/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/50-mil...