Dinosaurs Evolved Into Birds!! Really??

[bluefete]

What A Load of Absolute SHRITE!

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014 ... pods-earth

Dinosaurs shrank to evolve into birds over 50m years
Theropods underwent 12 stages of miniaturisation – from 163kg beasts to becoming the first birds on Earth, study finds



Ian Sample, science editor
theguardian.com, Friday 1 August 2014 14.40 BST




This is how the first feathered dinosaur, Microraptor, would have looked. It existed during the Cretaceous period, 120m years ago, in what is now northern China. Photograph: Brian Choo/Science

Huge meat-eating dinosaurs shrank steadily over 50 million years to evolve into small, flying birds, researchers say.

The branch of theropod dinosaurs which gave rise to modern birds decreased inexorably in size from 163kg beasts that roamed the land, to birds weighing less than 1kg over the period.

The radical transformation began around 200m years ago and was likely driven by a move to the trees where creatures with smaller, lighter bodies and other features, such as large eyes for 3D vision, fared better than others.

Scientists pieced together the dinosaurs' sustained shrinkage after analysing more than 1,500 anatomical features of 120 species of theropods and early birds.

The evolutionary tree reveals that the theropod ancestors of modern birds underwent 12 substantial decreases in size that led to archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird on Earth. The rate at which they evolved distinct features, such as feathers, wings and wishbones, was four times faster than adaptations in other dinosaurs.

"Birds evolved through a unique phase of sustained miniaturisation in dinosaurs," said Michael Lee at the University of Adelaide. "Being smaller and lighter in the land of giants, with rapidly evolving anatomical adaptations, provided these bird ancestors with new ecological opportunities, such as the ability to climb trees, glide and fly. Ultimately, this evolutionary flexibility helped birds survive the deadly meteorite impact which killed off all their dinosaurian cousins," he added. The study is published in the journal, Science.

The steady reduction in size saw the two-legged land-based theropods evolve new bird-like features, including shorter snouts, smaller teeth and insulating feathers.

Gareth Dyke, a vertebrate palaeontologist and co-author of the study at Southampton University said: "The dinosaurs most closely related to birds are all small, and many of them, such as the aptly named Microraptor, had some ability to climb and glide."

In an accompanying article, Michael Benton at Bristol University, said that the long-term trend that led to modern birds was probably shaped by the animals taking up in new habitats. "The crucial driver may have been a move to the trees, perhaps to escape from predation or to exploit new food resources," he writes.

A smaller body size would have benefited animals living in the trees, while enlarged eyes would improve their 3D vision to avoid collisions with branches. Insulating feathers could have helped them hunt at night, and elongated forelimbs gave them increasingly more impressive wings to enable more daring leaps from tree to tree, Benton writes.

[bluefete]

Did the meteor kill all the dinosaurs or was it their failure to adapt to the changed conditions after the meteor impact that killed them?

[wagonrunner]

[EFFECTIC DESIGNS]

The reason that scientists know these things is because of evidence. Fossil records etc

There is an interesting documentary by the eminent scientist Dr Richard Dawkins.
Regardless if you are a person of the faith or not its a very interesting and educational documentary. I will post the link below perhaps you will gain some valuable knowledge from it,
It helps you understand evolution and fossils etc.

Don't let the title of the video insult you etc its not just about things like god delusion etc but understanding the evidence as to why scientists make such bold claims.

Remember without Science we would have no medicine, technology and so on.
Engineering could also never exist without science. We would have no electricity in our homes, no computers no cars no air planes and so on....

Dr Dawkins has reminded us that while Biology is his specialty we should not still be having to debate these things and that we need more research into Physics instead as Physics is currently more crucial into finding unanswered questions about the universe that Biology cannot answer.
He has stressed that there is more than enough Evidence to label Evolution as fact now so we can move on from arguing about these things.

But unfortunately if people cannot understand intermediate topics in Biology like Evolution then for them understanding quantum Physics will be a lost cause.

[meccalli]

I remember I chose to write a final essay on this topic past semester. Archaeopteryx being the apparent link as well as the proposed theories that led to the evolution of flight and the physiological developments along the way. Doesn't make sense to me but the lecturers sure do buy speculation.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

this is the fossil of a micro raptor

[EFFECTIC DESIGNS]

^ meccalli without speculation and an "appetite for wonder" another of Dr Dawkins great books btw. We could never reach the stage we are in Science.

It is people like the eminent scientist Galileo who showed us the true Universe that we live in. And showed us that the sun does not revolve around the earth and the earth is not the center of the universe as the Catholic Church once made us believe.

If not for the appetite for wonder and fascination, Sir Issac Newton would never have invented calculus. Without an appetite for wonder like this, you would be a joke of a scientist or engineer as there would be no reason to push yourself to discover new things since you would might aswell assume the bible is correct and its pointless to question god.

my 2 cents.

[stev]

50m years is a long time...a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their head around that figure....

there is an illusion that exists in a lot of people's mind that evolution was instantaneous...

[VexXx Dogg]

Is this going to devolve into another creation vs science thread?

[bluefete]

this is the fossil of a micro raptor

Duane; I have no problem with the fossil being stated as that of a microraptor.

But to tell me that it evolved from a meat eating dinosaur like the T-Rex (my speculation) is just too much!!

I suppose it is like the fish walking out of the ocean onto land and over millions of years evolving into humans.

No, that's wrong. What did the fish evolve into? Dinosaurs? And from the dinosaurs we got birds??

Makes sense to me.

[VexXx Dogg]

@bluefete - oversimplification much?
take a gander here -
http://itol.embl.de/

[sMASH]

No, it would NOT have evolved from the t-rex.
Instead it would hegemony been from a line hat was smaller, and with each successive generation he trend smaller continued. The other traits like lighter bones and feathers would successively get better and better with each generation. This would have started happening over 200 million years ago. The dinosaurs as we have come to know them died out 65 million years ago.
Why they had died out is that there was a sudden massive change to their environment that they could not evolve fast enough to compensate.
What ended up happening was a culling. Only he animals which could have tolerated that sudden new environment was able to survive. It was their version of an apocalypse, and only their versions of the meek inherited the earth.
And apparently it was the smaller body sizes which www able to survive . Mammals lizards early birds most of which dodge not need much resources for an individual animal to live, generally those lived.
Why the smaller dinosaurs did not survive... I don't know, but I hunk it may be due to he temperature being difficult for the metabolism.

Then it may have been just the roll of the die, where not enough dinosaurs was able to hold on.


... And then the world saw the terror birds.

[sMASH]

Blasted predictive txt.

[bluefete]

Blasted predictive txt.

No, it would NOT have evolved from the t-rex.
Instead it would hegemony been from a line hat was smaller, and with each successive generation he trend smaller continued. The other traits like lighter bones and feathers would successively get better and better with each generation. This would have started happening over 200 million years ago. The dinosaurs as we have come to know them died out 65 million years ago.
Why they had died out is that there was a sudden massive change to their environment that they could not evolve fast enough to compensate.
What ended up happening was a culling. Only he animals which could have tolerated that sudden new environment was able to survive. It was their version of an apocalypse, and only their versions of the meek inherited the earth.
And apparently it was the smaller body sizes which www able to survive . Mammals lizards early birds most of which dodge not need much resources for an individual animal to live, generally those lived.
Why the smaller dinosaurs did not survive... I don't know, but I hunk it may be due to he temperature being difficult for the metabolism.

Then it may have been just the roll of the die, where not enough dinosaurs was able to hold on.


... And then the world saw the terror birds.

I was wondering what happened to your writing! Thought maybe you had a drunk or 3 before posting.


So did these early birds exist along side their ancestors?

[Coppershot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_birds
To the op.
There are several nat. geo documentaries that strong points that birds came from dinosaurs.
As well as the t-rex may have been a scavenger and not a predator.

Modern science follows, the hypothesis, observation, analysis and conclusion would point to similar conclusion. That being said, science is not always right but imo, I believe they came from dinosaurs as well. I would suggest watching several documentaries and reading some books on the topic and come to your own conclusion.

[meccalli]

We still got big birds, just not carnivorous emus. When i look at archaeopteryx, all i see is a flightless ave with unique traits to fit a specialised niche in its time. Has pretty much the whole shebang for aves except for a defining tendon passage, which emu's and ostriches lack anyway. The true toothed aves are gone sadly, but we still have tropicals that have terminal claws to match their unique behaviours. When we have stuff like platypuses around, archaeopteryx is pretty much run of the mill from my pov. I fail to see a creature with that anatomy and wingspan even getting close to gliding from running or leaping from steeps. If anything, i would say it seems more of a climber with its notable claw curvature with assist in leaping within the canopy or in descent given its unearthing location.

[Habit7]

50m years is a long time...a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their head around that figure....

there is an illusion that exists in a lot of people's mind that evolution was instantaneous...

Actually the idea of a slow evolutionary process only lives in the mind of its internet defenders. Stephen Jay Gould revolutionized the theory by theorizing the idea of punctuated equilibrium because it is what has always been observed in the fossil record, not slow intermediary forms but large jumps in evolution.

The theory of the evolution of birds from dinosaurs is a leading one, but it is yet to resolve hiccups like how scales (harden flaps of skin) could become highly complexed feathers (with shafts, barbs and barbules) which are wonder of themselves. This further backs punctuated equilibrium which would show that an intermediary form would just lack the protection of scales and the ability of light weight aerodynamic flight assistance and just leave the dinosaur vulnerable and likely to died out before it becomes fully avian.

Furthermore, we have fossil evidence of birds and dinosaurs existing simultaneously.

[meccalli]

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013 ... rornis-xui
Pretty cool find. Old though..09
God bless Aurornis xui.

[Habit7]

This is what happens when a population watches a stylized and idealized documentary, devoid of any salient counterpoints and then proclaim themselves to be well versed on the topic and all other dissenting voices are idiots.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

50m years is a long time...a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their head around that figure....

there is an illusion that exists in a lot of people's mind that evolution was instantaneous...

Actually the idea of a slow evolutionary process only lives in the mind of its internet defenders. Stephen Jay Gould revolutionized the theory by theorizing the idea of punctuated equilibrium because it is what has always been observed in the fossil record, not slow intermediary forms but large jumps in evolution.

The theory of the evolution of birds from dinosaurs is a leading one, but it is yet to resolve hiccups like how scales (harden flaps of skin) could become highly complexed feathers (with shafts, barbs and barbules) which are wonder of themselves. This further backs punctuated equilibrium which would show that an intermediary form would just lack the protection of scales and the ability of light weight aerodynamic flight assistance and just leave the dinosaur vulnerable and likely to died out before it becomes fully avian.

Furthermore, we have fossil evidence of birds and dinosaurs existing simultaneously.

we also have real evidence of apes and humans living together, that does not mean THAT species evolved into.... ah nevermind, I just remembered you are the guy who said the earth was created 6,000-12,000 ago in 7 days exactly as the Bible described it.

[rere31]

Transformers 4 legit prove science wrong, it was the seed that destroyed the dinosaurs :O

[COROLLA KID]

You all do know that there were different species of dinosaurs right?
all the bigger lizard like ones died and the smaller bird like ones survived mainly because of the diet of foods they fed on and the amount of food that was available..
Birds did evolved from a certain species of dinosaurs some had feathers look it up....
Man and ape although closely related are different species also, we evolved form the Homo sapiens not apes...although you might say Homo sapiens evolved from apes which is debatable since the human DNA is approximately 98.4% identical to that of chimpanzees..

My theory "if anyone cares" is that a handful of dinosaurs may have survived and for a long time until early humans "Homo (genus)" hunted them to extinction, just like how the woolly mammoth was hunted to extinction and the more recent Passenger Pigeon.....Im not an Archaeologist but man love wild meat from long time...lol

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

My theory "if anyone cares" is that a handful of dinosaurs may have survived and for a long time until early humans "Homo (genus)" hunted them to extinction, just like how the woolly mammoth was hunted to extinction and the more recent Passenger Pigeon.....Im not an Archaeologist but man love wild meat from long time...lol

there is no credible evidence of humans and dinosaurs living together; Barney and Flintstones don't count.

[COROLLA KID]

there is no credible evidence of humans and dinosaurs living together; Barney and Flintstones don't count.

there is no credible evidence that proves otherwise either

[Advent]

there is no credible evidence of humans and dinosaurs living together; Barney and Flintstones don't count.

there is no credible evidence that proves otherwise either

A HUGE FALLACY HERE

anyhows, after the extinction all animals bigger than the size of the average cat did not survive, it was the small dionosaurs than evolved into birds and rodent sized mammals grew, mammals were around with dinosaurs but were to small , so we got our chance.

[sMASH]

How come no aquatic dinosaurs remained alive ? If sharks could survive and they are highly specialized, then it should be that plesciosaurs should survive too.
Aligators and snakes I.e. Reptiles survived. Is that due to their really slow metabolism which can allow them to go weeks if not months wihout food.

[sMASH]

It would be interesting to plot all the livivng creatures on a genetic map, and see who is who grandfather and who is who cousin and so on.

It seems like a likely idea that some of the reptiles we have today are not true reptiles, but are lineages of dinosaurs that regressed back to more reptilian forms. I mean, he distinction between the reptiles and dinosaurs is little . The few that remained adapted and became more reptilian .

Not a theory , hardly a hypothses, just an idle thought.

[Habit7]

50m years is a long time...a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their head around that figure....

there is an illusion that exists in a lot of people's mind that evolution was instantaneous...

Actually the idea of a slow evolutionary process only lives in the mind of its internet defenders. Stephen Jay Gould revolutionized the theory by theorizing the idea of punctuated equilibrium because it is what has always been observed in the fossil record, not slow intermediary forms but large jumps in evolution.

The theory of the evolution of birds from dinosaurs is a leading one, but it is yet to resolve hiccups like how scales (harden flaps of skin) could become highly complexed feathers (with shafts, barbs and barbules) which are wonder of themselves. This further backs punctuated equilibrium which would show that an intermediary form would just lack the protection of scales and the ability of light weight aerodynamic flight assistance and just leave the dinosaur vulnerable and likely to died out before it becomes fully avian.

Furthermore, we have fossil evidence of birds and dinosaurs existing simultaneously.

we also have real evidence of apes and humans living together, that does not mean THAT species evolved into.... ah nevermind, I just remembered you are the guy who said the earth was created 6,000-12,000 ago in 7 days exactly as the Bible described it.

Well that is a problem for you to resolve. If you believe that one is the evolutionary precursor of the other then their simultaneous existence is what you need to explain, not me.

And bringing in my or anyone else's personal belief is a logical fallacy (tu quoque). I challenged your and other's idealised view of evolution with academia's true view of evolution. Whether I am left-handed, an Arsenal fan and my favourite colour is grey is irrelevant to your original claim.

[stev]

one does not simply debate with someone who thinks the earth was created 6000 years ago...

[SMc]

or even worse with one that believes grey is a colour.

on another note didnt dinosaurs like like Velociraptor have feathers?