The Link Between Dinosaurs and Birds

859 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Theropod Relationship With Birds

The Link Between Dinosaurs and Birds

There have been many recent discoveries pertaining to the finding of dinosaurs. However, there has never been a link between dinosaurs and birds at least not like this before. There has been a discovery in China of a remarkable dinosaur with birdlike feathers on its hind legs and tail including others places. A man by the name of Henry Gee has been researching this topic since 1996 and has come up with new discoveries. This four-winged dinosaur has fueled debate over evolution of airborne birds. This subject has re ignited debate over and over again about the origins of birds including feathers and their flights.

The researchers believe that this bird has been around for about 124 to about 145 million years. Researchers also believe that these birdlike animals belong to a new species called Microraptor gui, a stem from the previous species Microraptor. The discovery of the fossil was found in the beds of Liaoning Province of the northeast China. They have seemed to measure 77cm long in diameter and lived in trees and survived by using here wing spanned to glide through branches. These birds use inter limb skin flaps to leap from branch to branch.

It has been stirring up questions about which extinct reptiles do birds really belong to. “Microraptor gui: Researchers are keen to study its hip and shoulders”(Gee).

Its been finally agreed upon that dinosaurs, due to recent discoveries, are closely related to birds through there common ancestry To be more specific they are related to small birds carnivores called dromaeodaurs. This group of reptiles includes such names as Tyrannosaurus and others; they are all called theropods. To make an even clearer link between the two, theropods had feathers much like the birds during their time of existence. Theropods are called bipeds; bipeds have long back legs adapted for running. This includes them trying to excape from their enemies using tactics that help them to quickly climb trees. This adds to the hypothesis that birds evolved from a two-legged runner. Also there wings added to there thrust in running and helped in the elementary flight of young birds when trying to excape from enemies.

Further discovery suggests when young birds learn to fly it helps for them to just fall out of a tree and let gravity take its course.

Show More
Related

  • Ceratopsians and Pachycephalosaurs

    2049 Words  | 5 Pages

    Ceratopsians and Pachycephalosaurs are closely related in their characteristics. Ceratopsians processed a saddle-shaped boney frill that extended from the skull to the neck and typically had horns over the nose and eyes. The most popular was the triceratops, which could reach over 26 feet and weigh in excess of twelve metric tons. Their frills served as two major functions. It protected the vulnerable neck from being harmed. The second major function that the frill provided was due to the fact that the frill contained a network of blood vessels on its underside, which were used as a means to get rid of excess heat. The Pachycephalosaurs were considered to be bipedal. They were also found to have thick skulls, flattened bodies, and tail that were covered in an array of body rods. Pachycephalosaurs were thought to have been more than fifteen feet long and processed a skull that was surrounded by a rounded dome of solid bone. It was thought that they used their heads in combat or mating contests, but that was disproved fairly recently, which I will discuss later in the paper. Both Ceratopsians and Pachycephalosaurs were “bird-hipped” and both of these suborders contained a backwards pubic bone. Both were Marginocephilia, or “fringed heads”, which is one of three clads under the Orinthiscia order. They were also herbivore dinosaurs that inherited their fringe at the back of the skull from earlier ancestors.(2) Their classi...

    Read More

  • California Condor

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    Paul, Gregory S. (2002). "Looking for the True Bird Ancestor". Dinosaurs of the Air: The Evolution and Loss of Flight in Dinosaurs and Birds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 171–224. ISBN 0-8018-6763-0.

    Read More

  • Should Euthanasia be legalised in Australia?

    2093 Words  | 5 Pages

    The term Euthanasia is derived from the Greek roots, taking the words ‘eu’, meaning good or well, and ‘thanatos’, meaning death, to create the term “good death ”. (Definition of Euthanasia . 2011) The term ‘Euthanasia’ is not defined specifically within Australian Legislation, however the generalised definition states that Euthanasia is intentionally taking another person’s life by the means of a direct action or depriving a person of the medical care needed to preserve life. (Euthanasia: What Does It Really Mean? Date Unknown). Linda Jackson (2005) continues to add that Euthanasia can then be further separated into four specified categories: Passive voluntary euthanasia, active voluntary euthanasia, passive involuntary euthanasia and active involuntary euthanasia. Voluntary Euthanasia will be the specified area that will be focused on within this assignment.

    Read More

  • Cannibalism and Feeding Habits of Dinosaurs

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cannibalism is a long-standing taboo in our society; the thought of humans preying on other humans for a food source disgusts and astounds us. Though the practice is not common amongst modern day humans there is some evidence to suggest that ancient humans resorted to such measures, and a recent discovery in Madagascar attests to the possibility that some carnivorous dinosaurs fed on their own species (Perkins, 2003).

    Read More

  • Recreating Prehistoric Life: Jurassic Park

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    The idea of cloning dinosaurs and other prehistoric life became popularized by the 1992 film Jurassic Park (based on Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel). Though it may have sparked new interest into the field of paleontology, it did so with deceiving inaccuracies. However, the technical fallacies of the actual dinosaurs are somewhat forgivable as it added to the film’s dramatic appeal. Velociraptor, as depicted in the film, was about the size of a grown man. In reality, velociraptor came to about the kneecap. Furthermore, velociraptor would more likely have been covered in feathers rather than the lizard-like skin portrayed in the movie. One scene shows velociraptor fogging the window of a door. This is an endothermic or warm blooded trait as it implies the dromaeosaurid’s body temperature is above the temperature of his environment. There is also no evidence of dilophosaurus bearing a neck frill, and brachiosaurus did not have the ability to chew his food in a circular motion (iguanodon was the first dinosaur to develop this technique by acquiring back molars to allow for equine or bovine-like chewing). Fortunately, tyrannosaurus remained very close to his biological authenticity, with the only paleobiological errors stemming from a lack in computer animation such as rudimentary ball and joint programs. However, the erroneous nature of the deoxyribonucle...

    Read More

  • Implications of the Dinosaur Heart Discovery

    1192 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dinosaurs are often compared to and resemble modern day reptiles. Scientists will study how these modern day reptiles behave, look, act, and move to draw conclusions on how the dinosaurs would behave, look, act, and move. They also look at the intern make-up of the modern reptiles to predict how the dinosaurs internal make up would be. However, a recent discovery in South Dakota is stirring up some controversy (Hesman). While Mike Hammer was walking around a ranch in South Dakota he stumbled across a “big-eyed” dinosaur that he now refers to as Willo. The thing that caught his eye was the chest cavity of the dinosaur, upon further investigation he found a rock that was preserved in the curve of the dinosaur’s ribs, he was convinced that this rock was once a heart. Hammer then went on to take the dinosaur fossil in for a medical X-ray scan, this X-ray showed evidence that could change how we think about dinosaurs.

    Read More

  • The Implications Involving Dinosaur DNA

    1094 Words  | 3 Pages

    Of course it was the movie Jurassic Park who seemed to coin the phrase “Dino DNA.” This movie gave the public the thought that, a) it is possible to find dinosaur DNA and b) we can clone dinosaurs from this DNA. This essay is not going to pick apart Jurassic Park’s scientific value, however it will share the current knowledge and information on dinosaur DNA. The discovery of DNA is important because it may uncover different bits of information. The idea of cloning dinosaurs, especially at this point is out of the question. It is really hard to clone living animals today, with full DNA and genome strands, we can’t even think about recreating animals millions of years ago.

    Read More

  • Estimating Dinosaur Behavior

    1886 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dinosaurs are an extinct group of animals that thrived for 165 million years starting 230 million years ago in the Late Triassic period of the Mesozoic Era. Despite being extinct for the past 65 million years and not being able to study them in their true form, scientists have been able to estimate many different behaviors of dinosaurs. This paper will show that the close study and examination of different types of body and trace fossils, along with animal models, can be provided as evidence to estimate different types of behaviors in dinosaurs. The different types of behaviors examined below will fall into the categories of: mating; reproduction and nesting; social lives; locomotion; feeding; and fighting. To begin, a great deal of information gathered from fossils and compared to living animal models have been used to estimate mating behaviors.

    Read More

  • The California Condor

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fossil evidence suggests that the Cathartid (New World) vultures have been around for quite some time with two fossil species dated from the early Oligocene (about 35 million years ago). During the Pliocene and Pleistocene (about 2 million years ago) th...

    Read More

  • Nursing Models

    471 Words  | 1 Pages

    A nursing model is a collection of ideas and knowledge that represents nursing from the writers’ perspective, presenting different ways of looking at and understanding nursing (Aggleton & Chalmers, 2000; Hogston & Simpson, 2002). Thus, nursing model is a concept of what nursing is and are used as a tool to assess patient's needs/problems.

    Read More

  • Evolutionary Biology: The Concept Of Transitional Species In Evolutionary Biology

    1320 Words  | 3 Pages

    Several models have been proposed to explain why might Archaeopteryx or its decedents develop the ability to fly. The “pouncing proavis” or “trees-down” model was proposed by J.P. Garner and colleagues in 1999. They theorize that birds evolved to the ability to fly by first living in trees and then gliding down to ambush prey. Natural selection favoured individuals that could glide the furthest to catch prey and eventually led to the origin of flight. Garner and colleagues (1999) believed that this theory explained three aspects of early flight: the model matches observed secession in flight evolution based on fossil records, it predicts a primitive bird-like animal had few adaptions to flapping but very complex aerodynamic feathers, and it explains the origin of rachis in feathers.

    Read More

  • The Warm and Cold Blooded Nature of Dinosaurs

    1118 Words  | 3 Pages

    The debate of whether dinosaurs were cold blooded or warm blooded has been ongoing since the beginning of the century. At the turn of the century scientists believed that dinosaurs had long limbs and were fairly slim, supporting the idea of a cold blooded reptile. Recently, however, the bone structure, number or predators to prey, and limb position have suggested a warm blooded species. In addition, the recent discovery of a fossilized dinosaur heart has supported the idea that dinosaurs were a warm blooded species. In this essay, I am going to give supporting evidence of dinosaurs being both warm and cold blooded. I will provide background information on the dinosaur that was discovered and what information it provides scientists.

    Read More

  • Alcohol Misuse

    1591 Words  | 4 Pages

    On the community or the population, the total cost of alcohol harm is estimated to be between £17.7 billion and £25.1 billion a year, of this, the cost to the NHS is £2.7 billion per year. The other effects on the community are parks/play areas unusable due to litte...

    Read More

  • alcohol and the body

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    Alcohol abuse is a rising concern in today’s world. More than 80,000 Americans die each year due to alcohol related incidents, making alcohol the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

    Read More

  • Reptiles

    1082 Words  | 3 Pages

    Reptiles are vertebrate, or backboned animals constituting the class Reptilia and are characterized by a combination of features, none of which alone could separate all reptiles from all other animals.The characteristics of reptiles are numerous, therefore can not be explained in great detail in this report. In no special order, the characteristics of reptiles are: cold-bloodedness; the presence of lungs; direct development, without larval forms as in amphibians; a dry skin with scales but not feathers or hair; an amniote egg; internal fertilization; a three or four-chambered heart; two aortic arches (blood vessels) carrying blood from the heart to the body, unlike mammals and birds that only have one; a metanephric kidney; twelve pairs of cranial nerves; and skeletal features such as limbs with usually five clawed fingers or toes, at least two spinal bones associated with the pelvis, a single ball-and-socket connection at the head-neck joint instead of two, as in advanced amphibians and mammals, and an incomplete or complete partition along the roof of the mouth, separating the food and air passageways so that breathing can continue while food is being chewed. These and other traditional defining characteristics of reptiles have been subjected to considerable modification in recent times. The extinct flying reptiles, called pterosaurs or pterodactyls, are now thought to have been warm-blooded and covered with hair. Also, the dinosaurs are also now considered by many authorities to have been warm-blooded. The earliest known bird, archaeopteryx, is now regarded by many to have been a small dinosaur, despite its covering of feathers The extinct ancestors of the mammals, the therapsids, or mammallike reptiles, are also believed to have been warm-blooded and haired.

    Read More

More about The Link Between Dinosaurs and Birds

Open Document