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Birds are dinosaurs because they are in the clade dinosauria. Their closest living quadrupedal relatives by genetic distance are indeed crocodiles. But you're
by throwaway27448 6mo ago
Birds are dinosaurs because they are in the clade dinosauria. Their closest living quadrupedal relatives by genetic distance are indeed crocodiles.
But you're right, it is the fossil record that provides the strongest evidence.
- pfdietz 6mo agoI meant, "we have no DNA evidence from non-avian dinosaurs". Saying that birds have the same DNA as birds is not evidence of much of anything. :)
- throwaway27448 6mo agoI think the genetic distance from crocodiles is still pretty strong evidence.
- pfdietz 6mo agoThat just shows they diverged from crocodilians after that clade diverged from turtles. It doesn't show birds and dinosaurs are more closely related to each other than birds are to crocodilians (but the fossil evidence shows that.)
- greazy 6mo agoPhylogenetics is amazing, given surviving members of a clade we can reconstruct the ancestors. Phylogeny techniques can use additional info, eg paleontological record. Eg here's a nice paper discussing Bayesian phylo combined with rexord sampling. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/paleobiology/article/from-fossils-to-phylogenies-exploring-the-integration-of-paleontological-data-into-bayesian-phylogenetic-inference/BF7DB160A01BDD5183252BFB89A9699F https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/paleobiology/article... I'm in an adjacent field so take it with a grain of salt.