• Liz@midwest.social
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    7 months ago
    1. Birds are not descended from Pterodactyls
    2. Birds are not descended from T-Rex
    3. Pterodactyls aren’t even dinosaurs
    4. Mildly related, but popular depictions of dinosaurs never include birds, which is somewhat wrong. Birds evolved about 150 million years ago, while the dinosaurs evolved about 250 million years ago and died out 66 million years ago. So birds and dinos coexisted for quite a while.
    5. Even less related, it’s my personal opinion that we really shouldn’t consider birds to be dinosaurs. Like, sure, in a “are they in a clade together?” sense, they’re dinos. But in that sense, I’m a fish. It’s only a useful statement so long as everyone understands how useless it actually is.
    6. Boy this really got out of hand, didn’t it?
    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      we really shouldn’t consider birds to be dinosaurs. Like, sure, in a “are they in a clade together?” sense, they’re dinos. But in that sense, I’m a fish. It’s only a useful statement so long as everyone understands how useless it actually is.

      Couldn’t agree more if I tried for a week non stop. Spot on!

      Birds evolved about 150 million years ago, while the dinosaurs evolved about 250 million years ago and died out 66 million years ago. So birds and dinos coexisted for quite a while

      Huh! Didn’t know that! Thanks! 🫶

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
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      7 months ago

      Birds are not descended from T-Rex

      Although… birds are theropods and so was the T-Rex.

      As for why they’re theropods? There’s very little difference skeletally between them and theropod dinosaurs.