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When the asteroid wiped out the presence of the sun for a few decades, the large size was not advantageous anymore. The size of the larger dinosaurs came from the need to eat the taller trees and kill the bigger herbivores. The ability to fold the forearm against the body evolved in paravians, closely related to birds. The reversion of the pubis and occurred in maniraptoran theropods. The wishbone (furcula) and three-fingered hands of birds first appeared in primitive theropods. The bipedal posture, hinge-like ankle, hollowed bones, and long S-shaped neck of birds were inherited from deep dinosaur ancestors. They evolved into a continuously smaller size over the course of 12 separate mutations or an evolutionary trend spanning more than 50 million years. In the end, only the smaller dinosaurs from the Theropod family survived. This means they adapt quickly to new situations. They were too big to seek shelter and needed way too much food. The enormous dinosaurs such as Diplodocus and Apatosaurus would never have survived after the fall of the asteroid. Here are the main points that contributed to their survival: Smaller size During the following cold years, they survived by eating smaller prey. It is said that the Theropods, the bird ancestors, survived the mass dinosaur extinction by mostly burrowing into the ground or hiding in the water to escape the initial heatwave. The asteroid created a massive cloud that covered up the sunlight and led Earth to the Ice age. How did the bird ancestors survive the mass extinction?Īs you may know, around 65 million years ago, an asteroid hit Earth and completely wiped out most terrestrial creatures. Tyrannosaurus rex holotype specimen at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh. They compared it to many other animals, and to no surprise, they closely matched birds. Recently, scientists were able to extract and sequence proteins out of a well-preserved T-Rex bone. The evolution from Theropod dinosaurs happened during the Jurassic (around 165-150 million years ago), and their classic small, lightweight, feathered, and winged body plan was pieced together gradually over millions of years of evolution. That means that a chicken, for instance, shares a surprising amount of DNA with the most fearsome dinosaur that ever inhabited Earth! They were the largest terrestrial carnivores dinosaurs, and that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex on the list. The first bird’s ancestors came from a dinosaur family called Theropods. Birds evolved from dinosaurs, and therefore are dinosaurs. The truth is: “Yes! Dinosaurs are to birds as apes are to humans. The scaly feet might be one of the indicators, but have you ever wondered how many dinosaur genes are in a chicken? Here in this article, we will discuss if dinosaurs evolved into birds. You probably heard somewhere someone associating birds with dinosaurs.īirds have certain traits that lead many scientists to believe they are modern-day dinosaurs.