Are birds dinosaurs? Part 3/9: Feathered dragons
Transcript: https://internet-evoluzzer.de/dino-bi...
0:00 Introduction
2:20 Archaeopteryx
12:21 The renaissance of dinosaur-bird evolution (Deinonychus, Oviraptor, Sinosauropteryx, Caudipteryx, Microraptor and others)
20:18 Avialae (Connfuciusornis, Enantiornithes, Patagopteryx, Ichthyornis, Herperornis and others)
29:55 Mei long, Anchiornis, Mononykus, Fujianvenator: bird or dinosaur?
38:08 Summary
The realization that #birds are living #dinosaurs has been a scientific consensus for over 20 years. Only a few experts still question it today. But how do we actually know that birds are dinosaurs? While episode 1 defined what makes a dinosaur a dinosaur and episode 2 is dedicated to the evolution of non-avian dinosaurs, episode 3 traces the evolution of the theropod dinosaur lineage that leads to modern birds.
Within the dinosaur family tree, birds belong to the Avialae, the "birds in the broader sense" (all modern birds today are nested within the Avialae as the Neornithes group). All Avialae are in turn members of the Maniraptora, which also includes the famous "raptors" from #jurassicpark. These, in turn, are a group of theropods (carnivorous dinosaurs).
So what distinguishes a bird from a dinosaur? Paleontologists traditionally include all species descended from the last common ancestor of #archaeopteryx and modern birds in the Avialae - mainly small, airborne feathered animals with fully developed wings. Basically, it is the dinosaurs that had feathered wings used for flapping flight and the modern birds that descended from them. But this classification is not quite so simple, because there are forms that look like a bird to the layman but do not belong to the Avialae and vice versa. This video is dedicated to the amazing fossil record of "feathered dragons", from the famous Archaeopteryx, to the breeding #Oviraptors (falsely accused of being egg thieves), the feathered dinosaurs from China like #Sinosauropteryx, #Caudipteryx, #Microraptor, the colorful #Anchiornis and the sleeping dragon Mei long, to the extraordinary representatives of the Avialae such as the particularly species-rich "counter-birds" of the Cretaceous, as well as the origin of modern birds. All these finds prove that #Feathers alone do not automatically make a bird a bird. Much of what is so typically bird-like can also be found in non-bird dinosaurs.