√ Are Dinosaurs Alive Today?

Are Dinosaurs Alive Today?

Monday, June 22, 2020

Are Dinosaurs Alive Today?

Yes, It is a shocking news but also a fact that dinosaurs are alive today but not so large as past. The recent researches proved it that dinosaurs are present in our world today but in the form of tiny birds. Actual birds are the evolutionary species of dinosaurs.

The present scientific research tells that the birds are the group of theropods dinosaurs which originated during the Mesozoic Era ( the interval of geological time from 252 to 66 million years ago. It is also called the time of reptiles and the age of conifers ).

over 243 years ago, there existed dinosaurs in our world. Some of them were carnivore (eat meat)

carnivores

and some of them were herbivore (eat plants).

HERBIVORES

Scientists say that about 65 million years ago, a very big space rock collided with our Earth. Its impact results in the extinction of most of life on earth.

The impact of this space rock can be seen today in mexico.

The Chicxulub Crater

This resulted in the extinction of most dinosaur specie but not all. Some specie had evolved.

Human appeared about one million years ago on Earth. They had never seen dinosaurs alive.

An English geologist William Buckland firstly gave the evidence of existance of dinosaurs with the discovery of fossils of a very large animal jaws in 1819 named as dinosaur in 1824. That was a megalosaurus fossil which was carnivore (eat meat).

First discovery of Dinosaurs

In 1859, Charles Darwin in his book “ On The Origin Of Species” told us

“All living organisms are connected together. Species evolves with the passage of time and changes their traits. In the tree of life all living organisms are connected together”.

Many scientist denied Darwin’s theory.

In 1860, the discovery of Archaeopteryx fossils surprised scientists and made Darwin true. Because it was actual a bird with dinosaur like skull and skeleton. The thing which amazed scientists was Archaeopteryx had teeth because birds do not possess teeth. Then It was confirmed that Archaeopteryx is the specie between dinosaur and birds.

Archaeopteryx

Dinosaurs → Archaeopteryx → Birds

Archaeopteryx Skull

Then the question aroused that from which specie dinosaurs had evolved.

After the discovery of Pterosaurs in 1784 by an Italian scientist CosimoCollini, Scientists thought that Archaeopteryx had evolved from Pterosaurs which was later denied due to pterosaurs had four digit limb while both birds and Archaeopteryx possesses three digit limb.

Thomas Huxley proposed that Archaeopteryx was evolved from Compsognathus.

compsognathus

But there was a problem in this proposal. Both Archaeopteryx and birds had wish bone which was not present in compsognathus. This proves that archaeopteryx is not evolved by compsognathus.

Birds have wish bone

Compsognathus do not have wish bone

Archeopteryx also have wish bone like bird

In Feb. 1969, John Ostrom published a research paper in which he discovered a dinosaur with Archaeopteryx like properties.He named it Deinonychus (means terrible claw). Deinonychus is a genus of theropods. Deinonychus had fast moving claws like hunters and birds. Both Archaeopteryx and deinonychus had similar skeleton, tail, jaws, claws and structure of bones.

Theropod had also wish bone like Archaeopteryx and birds. So theropod were declared as evolutionary parents of birds by scientists.

Deinonychus Theropod

Deinonychus claw

Trex theropod Clawn

Emu (bird) Claw

In 1996, a fossil of Sinosauropteryx (which is a theropod meaning Chinese Dragon Bird) was found from china. This was the first dinosaur to be found with the evidence of feather. This dinosaur had fur instead of scales on its body.

Sinosauropteryx

This discovery realizes that dinosaurs evolved into the birds.

Theropods → Archaeopteryx → Birds

How many times you ate dinosaur (Chicken).

Comment if you want…

Dinosaurs are coming back

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Are Dinosaurs Alive Today?

Are Dinosaurs Alive Today?

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