7 ms·

>the dinosaurs that survived K–Pg were not avian Doesn't the term "avian dinosaur" in some sense mean "survived K-Pg"?

• Sharlin 5y ago
  Yeah, but not the other way around. But there’s semantic ambiguity with the term “avian” – I used it to mean “capable of flight” but it can also mean “member of the clade Aves”. The dinos that survived were not flying at that time , and not all survivors were in Aves; flight evolved in Aves only after K–Pg and other dinos that survived went extinct later. (I edited my original comment to be more precise)
  • phonypc 5y ago
    That does not jibe with my reading. Which is that there were certainly flightless birds that survived K-Pg (Palaeognathae, ostrich ancestors) and the dominant flying dinosaurs (Enantiornithes) died off, but Neognathae survived and was flight-capable.
  • SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
    Penguins, ostriches, and emus are definitely birds, definitely avian, and definitely not capable of flight (under their own power).
• Tagbert 5y ago
  But not exclusively. There were pre-K-Pg avians, too. “Avian” or “Avian dinosaur” just means a particular branch of dinosaur that gave rise to modern birds. As opposed to “non-avian dinosaurs”.
  • phonypc 5y ago
    Sure, there would necessarily have to be pre-K-Pg avians for them to have been the only ones that survived. I just don't see how one could characterize surviving dinosaurs as non-avian in any way, but they apparently meant non-flying.