Comment on Who's with me?
OpenStars@startrek.website 7 months agoEven so, one line of thinking along those lines is that the meteor did not in fact kill off the dinosaurs. It did manage to polish them off, but they were decreasing in prominence as mammals increased already. I doubt anyone could prove one way or another, but it’s a fascinating thought to ponder b/c if true, that would mean that the meteor was not the primary cause of their extinction:-). Maybe it was their lack of adaptability? As in, they were fossils even when they were alive:-P.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Birds are, essentially, dinosaurs. Dinosaurs never died out, they just got smaller.
OpenStars@startrek.website 7 months ago
I know what you mean but… actually it’s more like crocs, alligators, and gila monsters are the “dinosaurs” - especially since that word essentially means “large lizard”:-P. Birds are also their descendents its true but they kinda also have their own thing going on, having abandoned their origins in favor of that.
You’re not wrong though:-).
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Paleontologists would disagree and it’s their field of expertise.
www.amnh.org/…/birds-living-dinosaurs
OpenStars@startrek.website 7 months ago
They are not “living large reptiles” though:-P.
Likely they are referring to birds being in a monophyletic clade alongside dinos, but by that logic, humans are monkeys.
I mean, we are warmblooded, give live birth, have opposable thumbs, etc., so we aren’t “not apes”… but also we are so much more, so very different than how we started.
Also, computers are rocks.:-D
Jorgelino@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Crocs are about as far away from dinosaurs as an archosaur can get. They split off from them very early on. Note where birds fall on this chart in the other hand.
Image
OpenStars@startrek.website 7 months ago
Neat, I didn’t know that - that’s awesome:-).