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I know next to nothing about dinosaurs, so someone correct my ignorance: Don't we define Dinosaurs, in some sense, as "animals that were alive then and aren't
by edanm 14y ago
I know next to nothing about dinosaurs, so someone correct my ignorance:
Don't we define Dinosaurs, in some sense, as "animals that were alive then and aren't alive now?". Obviously, some of the Dinosaur species were related, but aren't there lots of different families of Dinosaurs which aren't connected? Had the wolves died too, wouldn't they also be considered as just another family of Dinosaur?
(Again, I don't really know if this is how Dinosaurs are defined or not. One argument against is that people talk about "birds" being descended from Dinosaurs).
- jcastro 14y agoNo, dinosaurs are a distinct kind of animal; - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archosaur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archosaur Animals species that used to be alive are classified "extinct", as opposed to being around today which is "extant". Wolves wouldn't have died off at this time, large mammals hadn't evolved yet.
- fhars 14y agoNo, we define dinosaurs "as the group consisting of Triceratops, Neornithes [modern birds], their most recent common ancestor, and all descendants" (Benton, via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur). And to answer the GP: yes, many small dinosaurs did in fact survive until today. You can hear them singing in the big blue room behind your office window in spring and summer.