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Dinosaurs in Your Backyard

Dinosaurs in Your Backyard

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 There’s a good chance that a dinosaur once stomped through your backyard. It’s more likely, though, that there’s one there today. I’m talking, of course, about birds. How exactly is T. rex related to the common house sparrow? Around 230 million years ago, there was a group of dinosaurs called the theropods, which included the bipedal carnivores. With their back legs used for movement, their front legs were free to specialize. In T. rex, they became, well, not much. But in other species they became grasping claws. While T-rex and his cousins were getting bigger, the grasping-claw dinosaurs got smaller. One of these subgroups, the coelurosaurs, evolved two important things: They became omnivores, so they could survive on a broader diet. And they grew early feathers, perhaps to keep warm. Suggesting they may have also become warm-blooded, like birds. With these traits in place, this group evolved rapidly. They got smaller still and developed early wings, for hopping and then gliding. This was a huge advantage, which encouraged ever-more-capable flight. Over millions more years, they evolved sophisticated feathers and hollow bones. Finally, to navigate in three dimensions and across huge areas, they developed greater brainpower and better communication systems. When that asteroid hit Earth 66 millions years ago, it ended the reign of T. rex. But birds, with their new capabilities, flew on. So look for a little dinosaur on your windowsill.
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