QuickCheck: Are birds dinosaurs?

WHILE it is true that tyrannosaurs and velociraptors have been extinct for over 65 millions years, some say dinosaurs are still with us but they are now called birds.

Is this true?

Verdict:

TRUE

Currently, the consensus amongst the scientific community is that birds are a group of maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs.

Birds and the now extinct non-avian dinosaurs, share many unique skeletal traits and of course, feathers.

The evolution of feathers predates birds, with the first examples entering the fossil record as far back as the Jurassic, roughly 150 million years ago.

That feather belonged to an archaeopteryx, which coincidentally was the first ever feathered dinosaur discovered as it was found in Bavaria in 1861. Though back then they thought it was an archaic bird.

Fossil evidence also show that birds and dinosaurs share many other features and behaviours such as hollow bones, swallowing rocks to help grind food in their stomachs (gastroliths) as well as nest building and brooding behaviours.

References:

1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dinosaurs-shrank-and-became-birds/

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/science/dinosaur-feather-fossil-archaeopteryx.html

3. https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-009-0133-4

4. https://www.nature.com/articles/461601a