The question is if the birds have the origins from the Theropods from the dinosaurs. Or if our modern geese, owls, and sparrows are coming from the Velociraptor or even Tyrannosaurus Rex?
Looking at some signs and characteristics, we can trace their origins back to the Theropods. Theropods are the bipedal and meat-eating dinosaurs from the Triassic Period, which lived 231 million years ago.
The Theropod’s relatives are not that far away when it comes to characteristics from the modern birds. They have in common the feathers and egg-laying, and some of them can fly, and some of them can’t. So the answer to the question – are birds like the dinosaurs is yes.
Moreover, this affirmation is sustained by Julia Clarke, who works as a paleontologist at the Department of Geological Sciences, from the Texas University, Austin. She is saying that the birds are the actual living dinosaurs in the same way we are mammals. Clarke is studying the evolution of the flight of the dinosaurs and birds.
The link between birds and dinosaurs
The paleontologist is saying that every species has some common traits that they share from their ancestors. In the case of the birds, they have as ancestors the Theropod dinosaurs. Besides Clarke, Takuya Imai, who is an assistant professor at the Dinosaur Research Institute from Fukui Prefectural, Japan, says that the modern birds and the extinct ones have some things in common.
For example, the modern birds have features like tails, feathers, not joined shoulder bones, forelimbs, toothless beaks, and the pygostyle. The pygostyle is a bony plate near the rears. However, the theropods hadn’t had all of the features in their body.
Besides the ancient dinosaurs, the early birds have characteristics similar to the modern birds. They existed 150 million years ago, and the best example is Archaeopteryx from Southern Germany. This bird had one kilogram, 50 centimeters, and it could fly. Other fossils were found in China and Japan, birds that lived 120 million years ago. Some of them were mature, female, and had long tails with feathers.
To sum up, birds have evolved even from the non-avian dinosaurs and continued to diversify. Thanks to the years of evolution, the bones become smaller and stronger; they have equipped with new features for flying and powerful muscles. We can say for sure that looking at our modern birds, we see the ancestors of the dinosaurs.