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  • MagisterSinister [he/him,comrade/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    aren’t birds like their direct descendants?

    All birds are dinosaurs, but birds aren't direct descendants of most non-avian dinosaurs. They split off from the rest of the theropods over 100 million years ago, so there was a really long time where they evolved next to each other. There's dinosaurs that became even more birdlike long after actual, flying birds in various ecological niches were already a thing, there's very birdlike dinosaurs that evolved into less birdlike dinosaurs like T. rex, which we now know to be definitely scaly and not feathery in parts where earlier tyrannosaurids had feathers.

    • comi [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Oh, interesting. But like, their last common ancestor was feathered or skinny? I.e. did dinosaurs lose feathers to get scaly, or did they get feathers to become bird-like?