Birds to Reptiles
Because reptiles appear in the fossil record before birds, we can guess that the common ancestor of birds and reptiles was an ancient reptile, and would have looked like one. We now know that this common ancestor was a dinosaur. Its overall appearance would give few clues that it was indeed a “missing link”—that one lineage of descendants would later give rise to all modern birds, and the other to more dinosaurs. Truly birdlike traits, such as wings and a large breastbone for anchoring the flight muscles, would have evolved only later on the branch leading to birds. And as that lineage itself progressed from reptiles to birds, it sprouted off many species having mixtures of reptile-like and bird-like traits. Some of those species went extinct, while others continued evolving into what are now modern birds. It is to these groups of ancient species, the relatives of species near the branch point, that we must look for evidence of common ancestry.
Notes:
Birds and reptiles share many resemblances, meaning they have a common ancestor, which is dinosaurs.
Folksonomies: evolution
Taxonomies:
/pets/reptiles (0.761802)
/science/biology/zoology/endangered species (0.417648)
/science/social science/history/genealogy (0.408253)
Keywords:
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Concepts:
Evolution (0.972096): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Dinosaur (0.849370): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Bird (0.778346): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Paleontology (0.669289): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Charles Darwin (0.666272): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Common descent (0.594642): dbpedia | freebase
Fossil (0.575800): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
On the Origin of Species (0.514231): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Why Evolution Is True