Birds are Dinosaurs: Simple Fact!

Hello everyone.  As I was browsing through my previous posts I noticed that I make reference to modern birds being dinosaurs on a few occasions.  I decided to dedicate this post to explaining exactly why modern science proves this since many people who read this may still be skeptical about the whole "birds are dinosaurs" thing.  I understand it's a difficult concept for most of us to wrap our brains around without any explanation.  After all, we have been taught for years and years (depending on how old said person is) that "dinosaurs are all extinct blah blah blah..."  It's tough when dinosaurs have always been the poster child for extinction and then all of the sudden some are still alive...in the form of birds no less.  Birds.  Like penguins...and budgies...and chicken.

...chicken?  I guess these tasty things are more accurate than we thought!

Dinosaurs and birds don't look anything alike!  How can they possibly be the same kind of animal?

Sure many dinosaurs were absolutely HUGE and most birds tend to be tiny and light with feathers.  So...

This seventy-foot long Brontosaurus...

...is related to this tiny Hummingbird???

Valid question.  Its true the sauropod is big and the hummingbird is tiny.  Also the two animals seem to lead very different lifestyles one being a lumbering land animal and the other a flitting flier.  But nature works in interesting ways.  Many times two animals may not appear to be related at all but if you check out their DNA or even just their fundamental physical characteristics that may not be obvious at first glance it can be discovered that they are, in fact, closely related.  I could just as easily make the same argument that...

...this huge Blue Whale has nothing in common with...

...this tiny, flying bat.

Yet everyone can agree that these two animals are still both mammals and therefore closely related despite how one is very large and lives in the ocean while the other is very small and flies.  Whats the difference?  The difference is that one of these ideas has been drilled into our heads since elementary school and the other hasn't!

But birds are the only animals that have feathers!  That should make them unique enough not to be grouped with dinosaurs.

This is just false.  Over the years paleontologists have been discovering many dinosaur fossils that have feathers or show direct evidence of feathers that are most definitely not birds.

Velociraptor, for example, is a dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous, a time when true birds had already evolved.  Interestingly enough, Velociraptor had these little bumps on its wings that match exactly to bumps found on modern bird wings where the feathers attach to the body.  These structures are called quill knobs. 
 

Velociraptor arm bone with quill knobs.

Another, larger dinosaur, called Yutyrannus was discovered with feathers as well.  This is the largest dinosaur known to show actual feathers at about thirty feet long.  It was a close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex. 

Yutyrannus bones clearly showing feathers.

Don't misinterpret me here.  I am saying that birds are a kind of dinosaur.  Not all dinosaurs were necessarily birds though.  Just like a dog is a mammal yet not all mammals are necessarily dogs. 

Well what if feathers evolved multiple times and it's just a coincidence that both birds and dinosaurs had them?  Its not like birds have anything else in common with dinosaurs!

Well, hypothetical nonbeliever, birds actually have a LOT of features that are common only to them and other dinosaurs.  The most obvious of these is something that you can see any bird doing at any time; walking or standing on two legs.  Birds are obligate bipeds.  This means that they walk on two legs and two legs only.   Birds and certain dinosaurs are the only known animals in history to be obligate bipeds.  Yes, many animals, including us humans, walk on two legs BUT we can also drop down to all fours if we wanted to.

Nonobligate biped. 

Birds and some dinosaurs, on the other hand, have front limbs that physically can't be used for movement on the ground. 

This tyrannosaurid, Lythronax, couldn't use its front limbs for walking even if it tried.

All these examples so far just show evidence from extinct dinosaurs.  Do modern birds have any features that are like dinosaurs?

Of course!  Its common knowledge that all birds have feathers.  But did you know that all birds also have scales like a reptile...or a dinosaur?  Check out the foot of any bird.

Bald Eagle...with scales.

Check out this one!  It even has the exact same shape as some (other) dinosaur feet! 

Rhea...with scales as well as a very distinct three forward facing toe design identical to...

...the foot of this Tyrannosaurus rex!

We looked at feet now lets check out the hand claws on some birds.

Wait a minute!  Birds don't have hand claws!  They have wings!

Actually, some have both.  Take a look at this modern bird called a Hoatzin.  

 

   Aaaaaaand zoom in on the wing...

Dino Claws!

So there you have it!  I realized that just saying "birds are dinosaurs" isn't really enough so this is my blog post with my arsenal of science to back the statement up.  There is also a lot of other evidence out there but I would be writing a novel of a post if I tried to include it all (hips...leg joints...the list goes on)  If you still have questions about this, or any other dinosaur topic for that matter, you are always more than welcome to post or message us on our facebook page where I can answer you. 


Works Cited

American Museum of Natural History. "Velociraptor had feathers." ScienceDaily 2007-09-20. Accessed 2012-07-20.

Hutchinson, J.R. (2006). "The evolution of locomotion in archosaurs". Comptes Rendus Palevol 5 (3–4): 519–530

Xu, X.; Wang, K.; Zhang, K.; Ma, Q.; Xing, L.; Sullivan, C.; Hu, D.; Cheng, S. et al. (2012). "A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China"  Nature 484: 92–95.

Prehistoric Animal of the Week: Allosaurus

This week we're in the Morrison Formation of the Late Jurassic again to take a look at the lion of the Jurassic. Let's give a Jersey Boys welcome by pumping our fists for Allosaurus.

Allosaurus fragilis
Allosaurus, truly a "Different Lizard", was named by Marsh during the Bone Wars in the 1877. Allosaurus had a length of around 28 feet (8.5 meters) in length though larger specimens have been measured in at almost up to 39 feet (12 meters) in length. Allosaurus inhabited the western United States during the Late Jurassic from 155 to 150 million years ago. Allosaurus finds can be found in the Morrison formation commonly and also the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. Related finds can be found in Europe, indicating a possible related species from Portugal known as A. europaeus.

Allosaurus fragilis life restoration: Christopher DiPiazza

From the remains of Allosaurus, we can tell that Allosaurs may have hunted in packs, taking down larger prey like Barosaurus, Diplodocus, and even Apatosaurus. Other prey included early ornithopods, like Camptosaurus, and stegosaurids, such as Stegosaurus. Competition from other predators would have come in the form of Ceratosaurus. It's been suggested that Saurophaganax is a species of Allosaurus known as A. maximus, but the matter itself is heavily disputed. Many species have given for Allosaurus and therefore it makes the taxonomic history of this animal of heavy interest. There's even been suggestions of an Allosaurus from Australia as well. One thing is certain, Allosaurus is a very popular theropod.

Allosaurus skeletal mount at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

References

Paul, G.S. "Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs". Princeton University Press. p. 94-96.

Join us next week as we venture off and take another look at a new animal. That does it for this week everybody, stay here at JBHD as we aim to educate you all about the prehistoric!

Prehistoric Animal of the Week: Paraceratherium

Welcome to the new "Creature of the Week" post! We took a little bit of extra time to decide on the prehistoric animal we were going to review and after some careful consideration, we have our rhinoceros. Let's pump our fists in welcome of Paraceratherium.

Paraceratherium (sp.)
Otherwise known as Indricotherium, this rhinoceros ancestor is one of the largest land mammals known to science. Praceratherium was approximately 5.5 meters (18 ft) tall at the shoulder, 10 meters (33 ft) in length from nose to rear. When the head was raised it would reach a height of about 8 meters (26 ft). Weight estimates are about 20 metric tons (30 short tons). Paraceratherium was by all accounts an herbivore. It lived during the Eocene to the Oligocene from about 37.2 to 23 million years. Paraceratherium was essentially a large hornless over-sized rhinoceros. It had tusk-like upper teeth and forward-pointing lower teeth. The upper incisors pointed down, while the lower incisors jutted outward from their position. Paraceratherium's lips were extremely mobile and probably aided the herbivore with stripping leaves from trees. What can be inferred from Paracertherium is that the animal was a browser that enjoyed leaves, twigs, and possibly shrubbery. Named in 1911 by Forster Cooper, Paraceratherium has a complex taxonomic history with names like Balucatherium and Indricotherium being in reference to this magnificent beast. Paraceratherium lived in Eurasia and Asia and its remains were found originally in Pakistan in 1911. 

Paraceratherium credit Christopher DiPiazza 2012 (c)

That does it for this week. Stayed tuned for next week as we take another look at another prehistoric critter from long ago! If you have a suggestion, e-mail me at: tyrannosaur*at*jplegacy.org.

References
Lucas, S. G. & Sobus, J. C. (1989), The Systematics of Indricotheres. 358-378 in Prothero, D. R. & Schoch, R. M., (eds.) 1989: The Evolution of Perissodactyls, Oxford University Press, New York, New York & Oxford, England, ix-537 - argues that Indricotherium should be included under Paraceratherium

Antoine P.-O., Shah, S.M.I., Cheema, I.U., Crochet, J.-Y., de Franceschi, D., Marivaux, L., Métais, G., Welcomme, J.-L. (2004). New remains of the baluchithere Paraceratherium bugtiense(Pilgrim, 1910) from the Late/latest Oligocene of the Bugti Hills, Balochistan, Pakistan. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 24: 71–77.

Extinct Animals Are Still Animals!

As someone with a degree in Animal Science, I find it gets a bit irritating when people ask what my involvement in paleontology has to do with my background.  I don't understand why some people think dinosaurs always need to be separated from the rest of the animal kingdom!  Being extinct (for the most part *cough* birds *cough*) doesn't stop them from being animals still.

I find many people tend to view dinosaurs with a different eye than they do for living animals.  Maybe its because no human has ever seen something like a Tyrannosaurus or a Triceratops alive and therefore its much more difficult to imagine them than it is to just go to a zoo and look at rhinos and lions.  Even so, I get the impression that dinosaurs are treated more like mythical monsters.  Granted, many fictional monsters are indeed based off of dinosaurs like Godzilla, for instance.  Its more than likely that many ancient mythical creatures that appear in folklore were inspired by the discovery of dinosaur bones by those civilizations.  Think about it.  Almost every culture including the ancient Egyptians, Aztecs, Mesopotamians, the Aborigines,the Chinese, ancient Greeks, Norse and even Native Americans all have their own sort of large reptilian monster such as a dragon in their stories.  These cultures were separated by great distances and thousands of years yet they all have these monsters in common.

Norse

Chinese

Mesopotamia

I'm not saying these people had no imagination.  But the imagination still needs to be inspired by something.  They were probably finding dinosaur bones.  They just weren't calling them dinosaurs is all.  It is believed that one mythical creature, the griffin (part eagle and part lion), was inspired by Protoceratops bones being discovered by ancient nomads thousands of years ago in central Asia.

"Do we know each other?  You look eerily familiar..."

Regardless if they were the inspiration for mythical monsters or not, dinosaurs were still just animals like any critters alive today.  Yes sure, they probably fought and killed each other from time to time, which makes for great television, but they also probably spent a lot of their time sleeping, eating and having babies.  I say it all the time on my various blog posts but its so important to me that I can't help but continue to bring it up; The best way to understand long extinct animals is to look at animals that are alive today. 

Today

Back in the Jurassic

Think of the natural world as a sort of major league sports team like baseball.  Professional baseball has been played for generations.  If you were to go back in time and watch a baseball game thirty years ago you would see two teams, a pitcher, a batter, outfielders...you get the idea.  Now flash forward to today and watch a game on television.  You will see the same game being played with the same rules but the individual people in each role will of course be different.  Nature works the same way.  Any ecosystem today has animals that each fill a certain niche.  A niche is sort of like a job description for an organism.  All organisms have their own niches in their natural habitats.  Go back in time and you will see dinosaurs had niches very similar, if not identical to those that animals occupy today.

Today

Same scene back in the Jurassic

There are a few academic paths a person can choose when they want to go on to study paleontology.  Many people choose to study geology.  But paleontology is a field of many elements.  Backgrounds like ecology, anatomy and just all around general biology are just as important. 


Works Cited

Mayor, A. (2000). The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. ISBN 0-691-05863-6.

Who Really Cares About Dinosaurs Anyway?

When doing events for museums and such one of the common questions I get from the adults is “Why do you study dinosaurs?”  The simple answer to that question plain and simple is because I think dinosaurs are cool.  If you ask a paleontologist I wouldn’t be surprised if he or she would give a similar answer to mine.  It is a valid question though.  After all what do dinosaurs have to do with us anyway?  They all died out millions of years ago and have no effect on how we live our lives today right?  Well not exactly.  I can think of two big ways dinosaurs affect us almost every day off the top of my head.  I’m not just talking about scientists who study them either.  I’m talking about most people all over the world. 

Who likes fruit?  Go ahead let me see a show of hands.  Let’s be honest, fruit is awesome.  It tastes great and its 0 points on weightwatchers!  (Sorry.  My parents are going nuts with this weightwatchers thing.  They aren’t even overweight either.).  Seriously though, you can pretty much gorge yourself on berries, apples and bananas all day if you wanted and it’s totally healthy!  (I think?  I’m not a nutritionist.)  Well either way we have dinosaurs to thank for fruit.  “What the heck do dinosaurs have to do with fruit?” you may be asking yourself.  Well I’ll tell you.   Way back in the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs were still around, the first flowering plants evolved.  Previous to this there were only plants like evergreens and ferns to name some…but no flowers.  Only flowering plants produce fruit.  What is fruit exactly besides delicious?  Well fruit is a flowering plant’s way of spreading its seeds around.  You see, many fruits are actually meant to be eaten.  The tree wants an animal to come along and eat its fruit in order to produce more of its kind.  This is because all naturally occurring fruit bears seeds.  The animal eats the fruit (and the seeds along with it) walks away and then later on the seeds come out.  How do they come out you ask?  Well how do you think they come out?  The animal poops them out.  Teehee!  Poop.  The seed is then in its own little pile of fertilizer and may grow into a brand new plant itself!  It’s a nice little symbiotic relationship that fruit-bearing plants have with certain animals.  (For those of you who don’t know, a symbiotic relationship is where two different plants, animals or other organisms help each other out).  The animal gets a meal and the plant gets a chance to spread its seeds around.  

I put a lot of love and detail into this sketch right down to the tiniest "plop".

Today, the animals that carry out this duty (Teehee!  Poop.) can be anything that eats fruit like monkeys, birds, bats and even some lizards.  But the first animals to do it were probably dinosaurs.  Think about it, who else were the only animals big enough back in the Cretaceous when fruit first appeared to do this?  Thank you, dinosaurs!  

I am aware Titanosaurs didn't coexist with monkeys and apples.  Just go with it for now.

The Second way dinosaurs all affect us today is simply because many dinosaurs never went extinct in the first place.  In fact, one of the most important animals alive today that people rely heavily on for food is actually a dinosaur.  Birds are dinosaurs, no ifs, ands or buts about it.  There is so much information to prove this fact I could easily spend several blog posts writing about it.  Instead I’m just going to show you pictuers of of two dinosaur skeletons (one modern and one prehistoric) and you can check out the family resemblance for yourself.   

Modern Dinosaur

Prehistoric Dinosaur

That being said, animals that we use for food like turkeys, ducks and most importantly, chickens, are all actually kinds of dinosaurs.  Who likes to eat eggs?  How about chicken nuggets?  Any fans of  Thanksgiving out there?  Thank you dinosaurs!  

Mr. Turkey decided to invite HIS family for Thanksgiving that year.

Elk-Moose: Prehistoric Mammalian New Jersey Native

Howdy folks!  For today's post I decided to stray away a bit from the dinosaur scene but still remain within the paleontology field.  That's right I'm going to be talking about prehistoric mammals.  Did you know that in addition to our beloved dinosaurs, New Jersey was also home to a bunch of other prehistoric animals as well?  Many famous mammal fossils have been discovered in the garden state including the well known Mastodon, Giant Ground Sloth, ancient beavers and even a prehistoric walrus!  At the State Museum in Trenton, there is the skeleton of another prehistoric NJ native commonly dubbed the "elk-moose".  Is it an elk or a moose?  It seems to have features of both.   

My quick life restoration  Cervalces americanus

My friend and former Rutgers classmate, Amanda Giesler, is now a graduate student of paleontology focusing on deer and their relatives (called cervids).  She asked me if I knew anything about the mysterious elk-moose skeleton's whereabouts and luckily for her I did!  It wasn't long before I met her at the museum to help her obtain some data for her studies.  I have to admit I'm not much of an expert myself on cervids...but she is!  Take it away, Amanda!

"About me: I am currently completing my M.S. degree in geosciences at East Tennessee State University. I am a NJ native, and completed my B.S. degree in Ecology and Natural Resources at Rutgers University in 2010. In the future, I would like to continue research in the field of Pleistocene paleoecology, work on a PhD, and eventually become a professor. I am getting married in June and have an awesome dachshund named Roo Roo.

 On March 5^th, 2011, I had the pleasure of visiting the NJ State Museum for the first time. New Jersey is well known for Dryptosaurus and Hadrosaurus fossils, but I was interested in the state’s mammalian claim to fame: Cervalces americanus, the extinct elk moose. Only two skeletons in the entire world of this Pleistocene giant are known, both derived from bogs in our home state.  The specimen at the NJSM was actually the first Cervalcesmaterial ever found, formally described by W.B. Scott in 1885. Only a few bones are missing, and the antlers are exquisitely preserved, which are the best element for identification of Cervalcesmaterial. 

Amanda and the very handsome Cervalces americanus.  (Amanda is the shorter bipedal one one on the right.)

 The elk moose is aptly named; some features of its skeleton are like that of the moose (Alces alces), while some features are more elk-like (Cervus elaphus). This becomes a problem with identification of Pleistocene fossil material because Ice Age faunas were extremely rich, and many times contained multiple cervid (deer) taxa. It is currently believed that the elk moose did not exist contemporaneously with the living moose or elk, but that is not known with certainty. Radiocarbon dates could help determine when the living and fossil taxa occurred, but these dates cannot be obtained when identification the material is difficult or impossible. Of course, paleontologists want to know whether they have discovered an extinct taxon or a living form, but the unique features of Cervalces could cause it to be easily confused with moose or elk fossil material.

Amanda measures the teeth.  Being a paltontologist can be tedious at times.  I was holding the camera like a boss. 

 All this being said, I am studying the cervids (deer) from a late Pleistocene aged cave in northeast Tennessee for my M.S. thesis work. Based on dental remains, multiple taxa are present, so I needed to study white-tailed deer, caribou, elk, moose, and elk-moose because all of these taxa could have been present at that time. This is what brought me to the New Jersey State Museum; other known fossils ofCervalces teeth may or may not belong to the extinct elk-moose. At this point in time, antlers are needed to truly distinguish Cervalces from other large deer. The NJSM specimen is special because the skull is complete with antlers and mildly worn adult dentition, so I could be certain that those teeth did in fact belong to Cervalces. I am currently working on morphological characters of the teeth which may help separate Cervalcesfrom other large deer, and using photos of the NJSM specimen to help me identify fossils from my cave."

I made Amanda promise me she would keep me posted on her project.  I am also looking forward to attending her wedding in June.  Maybe I'll wear my sweet Tyrannosaurus necktie...

Works Cited 

Churcher, C.S., and J.D. Pinsof. 1987. Variation in the antlers of North American Cervalces (Mammalia: Cervidae): Review of new and previously recorded specimens. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 7(4):373-397.

Geist, V. 1998. Deer of the world: Their Evolution, Behavior, and Ecology. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburgh, PA, 432 pp.

Graham, R.W., and E.L. Lundelius, Jr. 2010. FAUNMAP II: New data for North America with a temporal extension for the Blancan, Irvingtonian and early Rancholabrean. FAUNMAP II Database, version 1.0 <http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/faunmap>

Guthrie, 1990. New dates on Alaskan Quaternary moose, Cervalces-Alces: archaeological, evolutionary, and ecological implications. Current Research in the Pleistocene 7:111-112.

Kurtén, B. and E. Anderson (eds.). 1980. Pleistocene mammals of North America. Columbia Univeristy Press, New York, 442 pp.

Scott, W.B. 1885. Cervalces americanus, a fossil moose, or elk, from the Quaternary of New Jersey. Proceedings of the Academy of National Sciences of Philadelphia 37:181-202.

Dino Day 2012: The Kids Know Their Dinosaurs

Wow what a weekend!  Gary and I (Chris) had the pleasure of working not one but two separate dinosaur events over the past few days at the Morrison Museum and then the Newark Museum in New Jersey.  I love doing these events because it gives me a chance to check out exhibits from different museums as well as meet and connect with loads of people with the same interests as myself.

Serious Educators

 My absolute favorite part about doing these events, however, has to be talking to the countless kids that come over to our table eager to learn more about dinosaurs.  Its funny because they all remind me of myself when I was that age and their parents remind me of my parents.  Even though my mother and father are not dinosaur obsessed like I was, they ended up being well versed in the subject simply by reading me my favorite dinosaur books and playing dinosaur games with me when I was a little whipper-snapper myself. 

Me at three years old.  People used to mistake me for an Asian girl. 

Its amazing how much kids can learn if they are actually interested in a subject.  When I was little I couldn't read very well nor could I do math for my life but you better believe I could identify the differences between a Triceratops and a Chasmosaurus no problem!  This past weekend I met dozens of Children who could rattle off names like Quetzalcoatlus and Stygimoloch right off the tops of their heads.

I think a big part of kids knowing so much is thanks to great educational television shows that are popular now like Dinosaur Train and Dino Dan.  Many kids looked at my picture of Troodon and excitedly referred to it as "Mr. Conductor" for instance (If you have ever seen these shows you'll know what that means haha).