what did birds alligators and dinosaurs
all have in common their inescapably
tied to the same family tree a tree that
dates back 230 million years with one
branch leading to the evolution of
crocodiles and alligators and the other
branch expanding into dinosaurs and
eventually to their nearest kin birds so
one of the best ways to understand
dinosaurs is to study the similarities
and differences they share with their
closest living relatives
alligators look a lot like how we
imagine dinosaurs that they were living
today with scaly armor-plated skin and a
lethal set of chompers but ironically
that’s just a coincidence they’re
actually quite different one way to tell
them apart is that most reptiles have
bent legs that spread out alongside
their body many dinosaurs whether on two
feet or four walked with their legs
underneath them another distinction is
in their metabolism alligators and
crocodiles they aren’t able to maintain
a constant body temperature but rather
they take on the temperature of their
surroundings and even though it’s still
a controversial topic within the
paleontologists world recent findings
suggest that dinosaurs just may have
been warm-blooded and highly active
creatures despite the way they’re
depicted in popular Hollywood
these two cousins do share a very
interesting trait involving air and the
way that they breathe along with their
third family member birds they all
possess a hyper efficient breathing
system probably evolved from a common
ancestor
it’s called one-way airflow an intricate
network of air sacs that help extract
and provide a constant flow of oxygen
into the lungs with each breath twice as
much oxygen in fact as humans can pump
through their lungs when comparing birds
and dinosaurs however there are numerous
traits that immediately dinosaurs like
t-rex share with their direct
descendants the most groundbreaking
characteristics were discovered in 1861
we’re a strange 150 million year old
fossil was found buried deep within a
mine Archaeopteryx was an enigma the
size of a crawl only with razor-sharp
teeth it resembled more of a lizard but
with feathered wings
this discovery provided the first hard
evidence that some dinosaurs evolved
into birds then in 1994 a Chinese farmer
named Li Yin Phan discovered a
completely intact dinosaur fossil about
the size of a turkey and covered in hair
like down feathers it was called
Sinosauropteryx and it’s feather like
filament was a crucial link between
landlocked dinosaurs and modern winged
birds birds alligators and dinosaurs
forever linked in evolutionary history
and just like any family tree not every
member looks and acts the same but one
thing can be said about this motley crew
they all have one nasty white
you
all have in common their inescapably
tied to the same family tree a tree that
dates back 230 million years with one
branch leading to the evolution of
crocodiles and alligators and the other
branch expanding into dinosaurs and
eventually to their nearest kin birds so
one of the best ways to understand
dinosaurs is to study the similarities
and differences they share with their
closest living relatives
alligators look a lot like how we
imagine dinosaurs that they were living
today with scaly armor-plated skin and a
lethal set of chompers but ironically
that’s just a coincidence they’re
actually quite different one way to tell
them apart is that most reptiles have
bent legs that spread out alongside
their body many dinosaurs whether on two
feet or four walked with their legs
underneath them another distinction is
in their metabolism alligators and
crocodiles they aren’t able to maintain
a constant body temperature but rather
they take on the temperature of their
surroundings and even though it’s still
a controversial topic within the
paleontologists world recent findings
suggest that dinosaurs just may have
been warm-blooded and highly active
creatures despite the way they’re
depicted in popular Hollywood
these two cousins do share a very
interesting trait involving air and the
way that they breathe along with their
third family member birds they all
possess a hyper efficient breathing
system probably evolved from a common
ancestor
it’s called one-way airflow an intricate
network of air sacs that help extract
and provide a constant flow of oxygen
into the lungs with each breath twice as
much oxygen in fact as humans can pump
through their lungs when comparing birds
and dinosaurs however there are numerous
traits that immediately dinosaurs like
t-rex share with their direct
descendants the most groundbreaking
characteristics were discovered in 1861
we’re a strange 150 million year old
fossil was found buried deep within a
mine Archaeopteryx was an enigma the
size of a crawl only with razor-sharp
teeth it resembled more of a lizard but
with feathered wings
this discovery provided the first hard
evidence that some dinosaurs evolved
into birds then in 1994 a Chinese farmer
named Li Yin Phan discovered a
completely intact dinosaur fossil about
the size of a turkey and covered in hair
like down feathers it was called
Sinosauropteryx and it’s feather like
filament was a crucial link between
landlocked dinosaurs and modern winged
birds birds alligators and dinosaurs
forever linked in evolutionary history
and just like any family tree not every
member looks and acts the same but one
thing can be said about this motley crew
they all have one nasty white
you
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