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XemaSab

(60,212 posts)
Fri Sep 7, 2012, 02:30 AM Sep 2012

The dinosaurs in your garden

Birds really are dinosaurs, and a sparrow or a blackbird is every bit as much a dinosaur as Tyrannosaurus or Stegosaurus

The dinosaurs first arose in the Late Triassic period about 225m years ago. No specific ancestral species is identified, but we recognise that there is a distinct lineage of animals that can be grouped together by shared features of their anatomy that we call dinosaurs. This group has three main lineages: the huge sauropodomorphs, the herbivorous and diverse ornithischians and the (mostly) carnivorous theropods.

Modern birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs and so are part of the dinosaur group (or more technically, the dinosaur "clade&quot . Living birds are literally dinosaurs by definition.

This means several things, most obviously the fact that dinosaurs are not actually extinct. Most lineages of course have gone: every dinosaur lineage except the birds is extinct (and indeed various birds are no longer with us). Second, this means that when biologists and palaeontologists talk about dinosaurs, they actually generally mean all dinosaurs except the birds. This often goes unsaid in public communications (and occasionally the odd paper) but really when we say "dinosaurs" we should say "non-avian dinosaurs".

This is something I myself have avoided to date on the Lost Worlds, but it was always a point I intended to raise and introduce and then try and maintain. It's really quite relevant as accuracy is an inherent part of science communication and the statement that "dinosaurs are extinct" is incorrect, whereas "non-avian dinosaurs are extinct" is correct. Third and most amazingly, we have dinosaurs everywhere around us.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/lost-worlds/2012/sep/06/dinosaurs-garden-birds
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The dinosaurs in your garden (Original Post) XemaSab Sep 2012 OP
I would also say there are Neanderthals among us but do not want to insult Neanderthals. gordianot Sep 2012 #1
Since today's Neanderthals are all Republicans... Speck Tater Sep 2012 #5
I tend to think of Republicans as mutants sort of a Proto Morlok from HG Wells. gordianot Sep 2012 #6
How about the lizards in my garden? Cleita Sep 2012 #2
No, they're reptiles intaglio Sep 2012 #3
Not especially Scootaloo Sep 2012 #4
I wish the mammal-like reptiles got more press. Odin2005 Sep 2012 #7
Sort of a proto-dachshund pscot Sep 2012 #8

gordianot

(15,226 posts)
6. I tend to think of Republicans as mutants sort of a Proto Morlok from HG Wells.
Fri Sep 7, 2012, 06:22 AM
Sep 2012

I could see them someday feeding off the population if that is what it took to survive.

 

Scootaloo

(25,699 posts)
4. Not especially
Fri Sep 7, 2012, 03:18 AM
Sep 2012

Birds and crocodiles - along with pterosaurs, dinosaurs, and a handful of other extinct oddballs - are a group called archosaurs. They're descended from reptiles, as are Synapsids (which includes mammals and a bunch of old dead critters) but thye are not themselves easily classifiable as "reptiles."

In fact, the "Reptiles" class is kind of a defunct category, since it excludes creatures descended from reptiles. Aves and mammalia are good Classes, since they include everything descended from a common ancestor. "Reptilia," however, excludes birds and mammals, which do share a common ancestor with reptiles. The same problem is found with Pisces and Amphibia, since those Classes exclude all Reptiles, birds, and mammals, despite sharing ancestry with those groups.

Linnaean taxonomy gets really weird when you add evolution to the mix. Poor Carol Linne, he had no idea...

Also, the further back we go, we keep finding more birds; it may be safer to say that dinosaurs are extinct birds, than saying birds are living dinosaurs.

Odin2005

(53,521 posts)
7. I wish the mammal-like reptiles got more press.
Fri Sep 7, 2012, 10:22 PM
Sep 2012

The only one that most people know about is Dimetrodon, and most think it's a dinosaur.

There were an incredibly diverse group that dominated the large land animal fauna in the Permian period. The later Permian forms were almost certainly warm-blooded and may have already have had fur.

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