Although many of us wish we could have lived to see the age of dinosaurs, it turns out that remnants of dinosaur times are all around us.
Many creatures managed to survive through the generations to the present day.
Here are 15 animals alive today that lived with dinosaurs:• Sea turtles• Horseshoe crab• Tuatara• Lobsters• Cockroaches• Duck-billed platypus• Sea stars• Sharks• Bees• Snakes• Crocodiles• Salamanders• Frogs• Chickens• Ostriches
15 Species That Coexisted with Dinosaurs
The following creatures are ones that coexisted with dinosaurs – actually walking, swimming or flying – millions of years ago.
In some cases, they have not changed at all over the millions of years.
Keep reading for lots more information on these very unique animals, including if they interacted with dinosaurs and how they might have survived the extinction event that took down the dinos.
According to the North Carolina Aquarium at Port Fisher, sea turtle fossils prove that these creatures were in the waters some 164 million years ago.
Since dinosaurs lived for 180 million years, they were bound to intersect with sea turtles at some point.
The sea turtle species that green sea turtles evolved from was the Archelon, which lived in the Late Cretaceous Period.
It’s believed the Archelon lived in the Western Interior Seaway, which was muddy and shallow.
There, predatory fish species might have tried to eat it, including prehistoric sharks.
However, dinosaurs are largely believed to have coexisted with the creature that became today’s sea turtle.
Horseshoe crabs go way, way back, like almost 500 million years back to the Lower Ordovician Period, which was part of the Paleozoic Era. Chelicerata was probably the horseshoe crab’s earliest ancestor.
What’s interesting is not only that horseshoe crabs predated dinosaurs, but that they’ve gone unchanged for millions of years.
It seems that while dinosaurs roamed the earth, horseshoe crabs were unthreatened.
These living fossils kept surviving and are still here today.
If you’ve never heard of the tuatara, here’s what you should know.
It’s a reptile species from New Zealand that might look like a lizard but is anything but.
As a member of the Rhynchocephalia order, their existence dates to 250 million years ago during the Triassic Period.
Their diet includes snails, spiders, beetles, frogs, and lizards.
According to a 1994 report from the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, they were living even when the first humans came around.
Climate change is killing off these creatures since temperature dictates the tuatara gender.
Lobsters might go back 480 million years, suggests this CBS News piece, where they evolved from a gigantic species called the anomalocaridid, which was part of the Radiodonta order of arthropods.
Its filter-feeding system suggested the creature ate plankton, even though at its size, it could easily have ingested smaller animals.
When it comes to bugs, cockroaches have been here forever and will likely stay here forever.
Their existence dates back around 350 million years ago, which was the Carboniferous Period.
At the time, cockroaches didn’t have internal ovipositors, an organ that helps in laying eggs.
YouTube Video About Animals That Survived What Dinosaurs Couldn’t
YouTube video by Watch Mojo.com which discusses ten animals that coexisted with dinosaurs – AdventureDinosaurs
This 2020 article in science news resource Cosmos talks about recovered amber samples of cockroaches that date to the Cretaceous Period, which was a popular dinosaur time.
Any large dinosaur could easily pierce through the shell of a cockroach.
Then again, such large species would not be sated by a small creature like the cockroach, so the bug might have gotten by relatively unscathed.
In 2009, paleontologists in Shandong Province, China unearthed a fossilized skull of a creature believed to be platypus-like, says this Smithsonian Magazine article.
Other findings mention how around 2008, a jaw fossil was recovered that appears to be from a platypus relative.
The date of the fossil is believed to be 120 million years ago, which would have been during the Cretaceous Period.
The sea star, more commonly known as the starfish, includes nearly 2,000 species.
One of those, known as the Pentasteria, lived during dinosaur times.
The main difference between the Pentasteria and today’s starfish is that the former lacked suction discs that would have allowed it to feed on shelled creatures.
While it would be nice to know more about prehistoric starfish, finding a whole specimen is like tracking down the elusive needle in a haystack.
Like many creatures we’ve talked about so far, starfish was believed to have lived about 450 million years back during the Ordovician Period.
Sharks have been around for over 400 million years and were one of the first vertebrates to evolve.
Early fossil evidence for sharks was found in the Late Ordovician Period, 400 million years ago.
The Carboniferous Period is known as the ‘golden age of sharks.’ The golden age was a period in Earth history from 357.2 to 299.9 million years ago characterized by the global temperatures being higher than they are today and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere being much higher.
They were about 16 meters long and had teeth about 6 inches across, which means they could have preyed on dinosaurs.
A Megatooth shark is a large, extinct species of shark that lived during the Cenozoic Era. These ancient sharks evolved into modern-day sharks.
The next time you swat away a bee, just think that dinosaurs would have had to contend with the same insect.
Bees were found via fossilized records that date back 100 million years.
They and dinosaurs would have shared the earth for more than 30 million years.
There’s an argument over whether bees died when dinosaurs went extinct or if they made it through the extinction event.
What seems to be true is that some bee species did carry on to today’s times while others died with the dinosaurs.
Aquatic or burrowing lizards are the ancestors of snakes, which were thought to live in the Jurassic Period.
As the Paleocene Epoch occurred, which was after dinosaurs went extinct, snakes began diversifying into more of the species around today.
While we don’t know if dinosaurs ate snakes, we’re certain that snakes ate dinosaurs.
In 2010, National Geographic reported on a fossilized snake skeleton in India that preserved a serpent-like snake going to town on dinosaur eggs.
The first time that crocodilians appeared on the earth was 95 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period.
We know that these crocodilians are no more, but the creatures that gave way to modern-day alligators and crocodiles still exist.
Their body design would have allowed crocodilians to withstand many environmental changes that occurred after the asteroid impacted the earth.
Further, crocodiles can live in pitch blackness or light, in water or out of it.
In 2020, Russian scientists found amphibian remains that date back to about 168 million years ago, says UK news site Evening Standard.
The recovered salamander species, called Egoria malashichevi, was part of what are stem salamanders.
A stem salamander is an ancient species that so far seems to originate exclusively in Russia.
These ancient salamanders alive in the time of dinosaurs would have lived in large bodies of water, whereas today, salamanders prefer smaller bodies of water.
Its home was what is today Madagascar, but 250 million years back during the Early Triassic Period.
However, there’s some evidence that proto-frogs could have been even older than that, like 265 million years ago during the Permian Period.
Today, we have more than 7,300 different frog species, which is a ton!
If you’ve ever wondered why so many types of frogs exist, it might be due to the extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs.
According to a 2017 BBC article, frogs began diversifying roughly 66 million years ago, the same time as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.
The BBC quotes research published in the journal PNAS that states that up to three unique frog lineages occurred right after extinction.
These lineages accommodate about 88 percent of the frogs that live today.
Dinosaurs and frogs shared the earth simultaneously, at least for a little while.
Frogs would have preyed on smaller dinosaurs, especially huge, extinct proto-frogs like the Beelzebufo ampinga.
It’s believed to have been large enough to consume theropods.
The next time you have chicken for dinner, you’re eating the same meal that dinosaurs might have consumed.
The species, named Asteriornis, lived some 66.7 million years ago, says National Geographic.
While not exactly a chicken (related to chickens and ducks), it walked with the dinosaurs.
The chicken/dinosaur connection goes deeper than that, though.
Rex’s closest relative on this earth today isn’t the crocodile or alligator.
Rex was more than likely feathered, although exactly to what extent, we’re still not sure.
Plus, if you take the time to study a live chicken, you’ll begin to notice similarities in the anatomy and stance of a chicken and a T.
Rex. It sounds crazy; chickens aren’t even reptiles!
Rex collected in 2003 proved a match to ostriches and chickens.
For the record, alligators are the second-closest living relative of T.
Knowing that, we bet you’ll look at ostriches differently now the next time you’re at the zoo or see one on safari.
The two birds might look alike, but there are key differences.
For the record, emus could be related to dinosaurs as well!
So how did animals of moderate to high intelligence survive an event that killed hundreds of species of dinosaurs?
Without further ado then, here’s what the above 15 animal species had that dinosaurs might have lacked, which was indeed the difference between life and death.
If you are interested in knowing what animals are closely related to dinosaurs, I wrote a full article on just about this subject.
Check it out here: The 9 Closest Living Things to Dinosaurs (Not Only Birds)
When a mass extinction event occurs like the one that killed off the dinosaurs, it’s not only the victims that are affected.
The surviving species are as well.
These uncertain times would have required an animal to be able to eat almost anything that came their way, or they wouldn’t survive.
Crocodiles are credited with getting through the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event since they would eat such varied meals.
Herbivorous dinosaurs, of which there were many, had a much more limited diet.
Some sauropods like the Triceratops are believed to have only consumed certain types of shrubs or trees.
Once that food source is gone, so is the dinosaur.
How much food an animal required for survival also could have played a role.
Food was undoubtedly sparse in the weeks, months, or even years after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.
If an animal could eat little and live off that, they were in good shape to survive.
That again brings us to crocodiles, as they might be able to go up to a year without food.
It’s also reasonable that crocodiles kept that evolutionary trait to this day.
Another way that animals might have gotten through the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event was they knuckled down and found a good spot to hide.
We’ve talked about them a lot, but crocodiles can live in water or outside of it as well as in light or dark conditions, which is a point we mentioned earlier.
The animals that could find spots to hide or adapt quickly to a new environment were those that made it through and are still here today.
Luck
Although the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event was far-spreading, some parts of the planet might not have been as strongly affected.
In the areas that were, maybe forced climate change caused conditions to improve enough to encourage survival in animal species that otherwise would not have lived.
Or it could have just been dumb, blind luck.
Even paleontologists and scientists aren’t completely sure how some of today’s animals made it through the extinction event, just that they did.
Many animals that we share the planet with today were alive in some form in the age of the dinosaurs.
From chickens to lobsters, sea turtles to frogs, and bees to starfish, it’s a humbling, fascinating tale to see how these animals evolved over the millions of years and survived the KT extinction event.
Although scientists consider birds to be the only dinosaur descendants still in existence, there are many other living animals that scientists believe are closer to dinosaurs.
The closest living things to dinosaurs need to be taken a look at in terms of classification of species.
Dinosaurs are classified as reptiles, a group that includes crocodiles, lizards, turtles, and snakes.
Of this large group of animals, other than birds, crocodiles are the closest living things to dinosaurs.
The order of crocodilia includes species of alligators, gharials and crocodiles.
They belong to the order Crocodilia which also includes species of alligators, and gharials.
The Key Differences and Similarities from the Closest Living Things to Dinosaurs
Before we get into the list of animals closely related to dinosaurs, let’s back up a little and cover some differences and similarities.
Below are some similarities between dinosaurs and modern-day living organisms.
● Dinosaurs built nests and laid eggs just like modern birds and reptiles.
Moreover, dinosaurs, reptiles, and birds are all vertebrate animals, which means that they all have a spine with some appendages.
● Both reptiles and dinosaurs have dermal bone structures, such as the plates on the skin, the presence of an endoskeleton, and scales known scientifically as osteoderms.
● Reproduction: The vast majority of birds and reptiles are oviparous.
It’s the term used by scientists to describe living organisms that hatch from eggs.
There are only a few living reptilian species that are ovoviviparous, a scientific term used to describe the process of young ones hatching from eggs that have been incubated inside the animal’s body.
Additionally, fertilization in all reptiles and birds occurs internally.
● The offspring of reptiles, birds, and dinosaurs are miniature versions of the adults, and they do not change as they grow older.
● Dinosaurs, just like reptiles, had scaled dry skin.
Birds also have scales on particular areas of the body, such as on their feet.
Below are a few differences between dinosaurs and modern-day living organisms.
● Seemingly, dinosaurs were merely crocodiles that existed during a period when the earth provided favorable conditions to such living organisms to thrive.
This idea implies that a crocodile that survived for a few centuries would grow into a dinosaur; this idea, however, does not seem correct.
It is because the differences between modern-day organisms and dinosaurs are much more significant than they might seem.
Below are a few fundamental and skeletal differences between birds, dinosaurs, and modern-day reptiles.
● Most reptiles, like crocodiles and lizards, have legs that grow towards the side.
Consequently, most modern-day reptilian species move from side to side.
● Dinosaurs, on the other hand, can stand upright with their legs right below their bodies because a dinosaur has a hole in its hip socket to permit this growth structure.
Therefore, dinosaurs can run faster and with more endurance than most modern-day reptiles.
● Modern-day birds have numerous modifications to adapt themselves for flight.
For instance, birds have hollow bones and fragile skulls.
A bird’s body is condensed into a more compact shape with the reptilian tail present in dinosaurs abandoned.
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What Living Animal Is Closest To Dinosaurs?
So let’s get into it, listing out the closest living things to dinosaurs.
Reptiles are a classification of tetrapod animals that include lizards, crocodiles, turtles, and snakes.
List of 9 Living Descendants of Dinosaurs (Not Only Birds)
● Crocodiles ● Alligators ● Tuatara ● Lizards ● Birds ● Chickens ● Turtles ● Falcons ● Parrots
Let’s take a closer look at each one of these relatives.
Of this diverse family of modern animals, scientists believe that crocodiles hold the closest relations to the now-extinct dinosaurs.
The table below lists the closest animal relative to a dinosaur, the similarities and the classification or phylogeny that defines the family or species.
More information about each of the closest ancestors to dinosaurs can be found below the table.
Table 1 – List of 9 Closest Living Animals to Dinosaurs
AlligatorsLays eggs, skull holes, legs to side of trunkFamily – Alligatoridae
LizardsTail, lays eggs, osteoderms/ scales in some speciesSuborder – Lacertilia
TurtlesLays eggs, legs on side of body, scales on neck and legsOrder – Testudines
FalconsLays eggs, skull holes, scales on feetGenus- Falco; Subfamily Falconidae
ParrotsBeak similar to parrot dinosaur, lays eggs, osterderms, scales on feetOrder- Psittaciformes
Modern taxonomy classifies all dinosaurs as reptiles because, among other things, they hatched from eggs, they existed in the Mesozoic Era – the age of reptiles.
Crocodiles are large reptiles.
Just like other archosaurs, crocodiles are diapsid (a group of tetrapods that have two holes on each side of the skull), even though they are reduced in size.
Crocodiles are the closest related animals to dinosaurs – AdventureDinosaurs
Crocodilians are closely related to dinosaurs and birds more than most modern-day organisms because the family classification has features that relate more closely to other species.
Both dinosaurs and crocodiles are grouped under the class Archosauria, which means chief or ruler + lizard (from Latin and Greek).
Even though scientists do not consider crocodiles to be direct descendants of dinosaurs, as is the case in birds, the two sets of animals have multiple similarities.
There are about twenty known crocodile species today, which reside in the tropics of Asia, Australia, Africa, and the Americas.
According to recent research (Source), alligators can create the same kind of neural maps of sound in the same way birds do.
The scientists attributed this characteristic to the fact that both organisms shared a common ancestor: the archosaur.
Alligators have a wider snout and are also close living relatives to dinosaurs – AdventureDinosaurs
Alligators are considered closely related to dinosaurs because they are part of the crocodile classification.
They share similar characteristics to crocodiles but are less closely related than true crocodiles.
Check out my article Are Alligators Related to Dinosaurs?
(Classification, Similarities) to read in detail what scientists find that links alligators to dinosaurs and why they are so closely related.
The tuatara was recognized to have its own classification (and not as a lizard) in 2017, about 150 years since it was first classified as a lizard.
Its classification qualifies it as one of the closest living relatives to dinosaurs alive today.
Tuataras live almost exclusively in New Zealand.
Like lizards, they have the third eye at birth on the top of its head, but after 4-6 months, it is covered in scales and coloring, which makes it invisible unless you know where to look for it.
YouTube Video – Watch a Live Tuatara
The tuatara is a reptile that can decapitate birds given its saw-like jaws.
The animal lives to one hundred years old, and it can also remain alive in near-freezing environments.
It is also the only remaining survivor of an ancient lineage of the first dinosaurs.
Lizards are considered to be closely related to dinosaurs for many more things than just looks!
With thousands of species in its classifications and families, a suggestion is to consider the similarities and differences between dinosaurs and lizards in the classification features.
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Best Dinosaur Learning Toys
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There are many different species and classifications of lizards – AdventureDinosaurs
The unique features of lizards, according to Wikipedia, “lizards make use of a variety of antipredator adaptations, including venom, camouflage, reflex bleeding, and the ability to sacrifice and regrow their tails.”
Interestingly enough, history dictates that birds might have evolved from Saurischian dinosaurs.
This is because birds only started to emerge about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic age.
Today, there are more than ten thousand bird species all over the world.
All varieties and species of birds are modern day descendants of dinosaurs – AdventureDinosaurs
A comparison of contemporary living chicken species and the protein sequence derived from T-Rex collagen indicate remarkable similarities between the two (Source).
From this comparison, it is found that chickens share numerous features, like fused clavicles, hollow bones, similar hip structures, feathers, and bones with air pockets.
Chickens have many anatomical features that are similar to dinosaurs – AdventureDinosaurs
As a result, chickens might be closer to dinosaurs than alligators.
Some scientists have even gone further to claim that chickens are modern dinosaurs.
They are one of the closest ancestor to dinosaurs.
The scientists generated considerable amounts of genetic data that significantly influenced the perceived evolutionary history for turtles.
Turtles have been co-existed with dinosaurs and have now outlived the dinosaurs by more than 100 million years.
All turtles, but especially sea turtles, are close relatives to dinosaurs – AdventureDinosaurs
The scientists, therefore, placed turtles underclass ‘Archelosauria.’ This group consists of the animal’s closest relatives, like dinosaurs, crocodiles, and birds.
If you want to read more about how turtles are related to dinosaurs, check out my article Are Turtles Related to Dinosaurs?
Ancient Turtles Reveal the Answer where I go into detail about these amazing shelled animals that lived with dinosaurs.
The Archaeopteryx, the most famous fossil bird, looked similar to modern-day falcons.
The Archaeopteryx might have existed 150 million years ago, and it indicated clear examples of transitional dinosaur species.
The species displayed featured found in both dinosaurs and birds.
While there are no “flying dinosaurs”, but instead, should be stated as “flying reptiles”, Pterosaurs lived during the majority of the Mesozoic Era periods.
If you are interested to learn more about similar birds of prey and how they are related to Pterosaurs, check out my article How Are Pterodactyls Similar To Eagles?
It covers similarities, differences and dives into the classification and phylogeny of the Pterosaurs and eagles.
Falcons are related to the ancient flying reptile Archaeopteryx- AdventureDinosaurs
Falcons are considered related to dinosaurs due to classifications and family groupings of the Archaeopteryx.
Scientists have often theorized that most bird species evolved from dinosaurs.
Even so, scientists discovered fossil bones of a parrot-like dinosaur in 2009.
The Psittacosaurus dinosaur had a powerful curved beak, ate nuts and plants, walked on two limbs, and it had dagger-like claws.
The species, which lived about 100 million years ago, is commonly referred to as the parrot dinosaur.
Living Dinosaurs Today – Diving Deeper Into the Background on Dinosaurs and Dinosaur Relatives
Dinosaurs did not spring into existence until about two hundred million years ago.
Just like other living things, they gradually and slowly evolved from previously existing organisms: the archosaurs.
Meet Psittacosaurus, the parrot dinosaur – AdventureDinosaurs
It was by following the rules brought forth by Charles Darwin regarding the natural selection and adaptation processes in living things.
In looking for the closest living things to dinosaurs, we can follow Darwin’s processes too.
According to history, archosaurs were not very different from dinosaurs.
However, they were much smaller than their descendants: the dinosaurs.
Moreover, they had particular features that seemed to set them apart from dinosaurs.
Scientists might have identified a single archosaurs genus from which dinosaurs might have evolved: the Lagosuchus.
Such naming implies a quick and tiny reptile that might have scampered across forests in Triassic South America.
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Dinosaur Evolution During the Early Triassic Period
Interestingly, the archosaurs during the late and middle Triassic period did not evolve into dinosaurs alone.
Isolated populations of these reptiles might have spawned the first crocodiles and pterosaurs as well.
In fact, for more than twenty million years, the part of the globe that corresponds to modern-day South America was filled with two-legged dinosaurs, two-legged archosaurs, and two-legged crocodiles.
In fact, for more than twenty million years, the part of the globe that corresponds to modern-day South America was filled with two-legged dinosaurs, two-legged archosaurs, and two-legged crocodiles.
Moreover, scientists often have a problem distinguishing between the fossil discoveries of these three separate families of animals.
Paleontologists are not sure whether the archosaurs coexisted with therapsids – the mammal-like reptiles that existed during the late Permian period.
Additionally, they remain unsure of whether the archosaurs survived after the Triassic Extinction Event that occurred two hundred million years ago.
However, what remains clear is that dinosaurs might have gained the upper hand by the time the Jurassic period started.
————————————————————————————————Related Dinosaur Articles You Might Also Be Interested In:The Most Terrifying Dinosaurs – A List of 13 (with Scenarios!)How Much Would A Real Dinosaur Egg Be WorthFlying Dinosaur Types- Ultimate Guide To Pterodactyls, Pterosaurs————————————————————————————————
The First Dinosaurs
The path of dinosaur evolution gets into sharper focus immediately if you shift your attention towards the Triassic Period and look at dinosaur species in South America and we may find some clues in determining the closest living things to dinosaurs.
During this period, the first dinosaurs slowly evolved into the tyrannosaurs, the raptors, and the sauropods we know today.
The best candidate to suit the label of the first real dinosaur must be the Eoraptor.
The Eoraptors survived by consuming the smaller archosaurs, mammals, and crocodiles.
The next crucial evolutionary event that followed the appearance of the Eoraptor might have been the split between the ornithischian dinosaurs (bird-like species), and the Saurischian dinosaurs (lizard-like species).
This event transpired before the start of the Jurassic era.
Herbivorous dinosaurs include the ornithopods, ceratopsians, and the hadrosaurs.
The prosauropods are the bipedal, slender, and herbivorous dinosaurs.
These types of dinosaurs may have eventually evolved into titanosaurs and sauropods.
Theropods are the carnivorous dinosaurs, such as the raptors and the T-Rex.
The dinosaurian evolution continued to form its course even after these dominant dinosaur species were formed.
However, according to recent paleontological research, the speed of dinosaur adaptation drastically slowed down during the Cretaceous period.
During this period, dinosaurs were locked into existing species, and their rates of diversification and speciation slowed down considerably.
A Deeper Dive Into Classification – What Science Says About Classifications of Dinosaurs
Modern taxonomy classifies all dinosaurs as reptiles.
It is because, among other things, they hatched from eggs, they existed in the Mesozoic Era – the age of reptiles.
However, there are more in-depth scientific data that aims at accurately classifying dinosaurs in light of both modern and traditional methods of classification.
Groupings of dinosaurs of the Ornithischian classification – AdventureDinosaurs
Traditional taxonomy dictates that animals must be grouped in light of their common characteristics.
Common characteristics in reptiles include:
Arguably, most dinosaur species did not have all features found in the modern-day reptiles.
Modern taxonomy methodology classifies living organisms in light of their ancestry.
Simply put, organisms that share a common ancestor are grouped together.
In this case, scientists would have to go many centuries back to find out which organism had the first reptile-like characteristics.
This organism would then be considered to be the common ancestor for this group of animals.
Consequently, scientists will classify all its descendants in one group.
Therefore, to accurately apply the modern system of classification, we must have a look at dinosaur evolution.
Dinosaur Evolution
Amphibians gained the capability to lay eggs more than three hundred million years ago.
Scientists consider these amphibians to be the earliest reptiles.
Soon afterward, the first reptiles split into other branches, like snakes and lizards, archosaurs, turtles, and the swimming reptiles.
The archosaurs, after that, split into dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and crocodiles.
Therefore, in light of the phylogenetic method of classification, dinosaurs should be considered to be direct descendants of reptilian amphibians that had migrated from water bodies.
Even though taxonomy prefers to consider dinosaurs as reptiles, one cannot ignore that some dinosaurs looked more like birds than other reptilian species.
Why Birds Look More like Dinosaurs than Some Reptilian Species
One might suggest that birds are the closest living things to dinosaurs.
Some scientists even argue that dinosaurs might have had feathers, they might have hatched from eggs, and they might have been warm-blooded.
Bird-like dinosaurs, or should it be stated “dinosaur-like birds” – AdventureDinosaurs
With these features in mind, some paleontologists argue that dinosaurs were birds.
If you understand evolution history well enough, then you do realize that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
This line of thought implies that they were no birds before dinosaurs.
Avian dinosaurs are, often, regarded to have been the first bird-like species.
However, considering that not all dinosaur species were feathered or warm-blooded, it is very likely that there might have been an overlap between reptiles and birds.
To answer the question, why do birds look more like dinosaurs than some reptilian species, we have to again look to the scientific classification of animals.
Dinosaurs represent a very diverse group of reptiles, which might have emerged more than four hundred million years ago.
The reptiles represent the dominant land species for more than two hundred million years until they were sent into extinction after a spatial asteroid hit the earth.
● Ornithischia represents a set of beaked, herbivorous dinosaur species.
Members of this group might include the Iguanodon and the Stegosaurus species.
● Saurischia represents all sauropods (herbivorous dinosaurs) and theropods (giant carnivorous dinosaurs).
Interestingly enough, history dictates that birds might have evolved from the Saurischian species because birds only started to emerge about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic age.
Secondly, some of the Saurischian dinosaurs had very light bones, they laid eggs, and they were covered in feathers.
Secondly, some of the Saurischian dinosaurs had very light bones, they laid eggs, and they were covered in feathers.
The Saurischian dinosaurs had so many characteristics in common with modern birds.
The Saurischian dinosaurs had so many characteristics in common with modern birds.
Evolution takes time, and the transition from dinosaurs to birds might have taken millions of centuries.
The most well-known fossil in this regard is the Archaeopteryx, which might have existed 150 million years ago.
The Archaeopteryx indicated clear examples of transitional dinosaur species: they displayed features found in both dinosaurs and birds.
Indeed, most of the Archaeopteryx fossils show evidence of some feather-like impressions.
Additionally, since feathers were required to enable flight, the fossils provided evidence that the evolution had already started even before the Jurassic period came to an end.
However, it must have taken a few million years before birds themselves started to diversify.
For millions of years, birds had clawed wings and teeth.
According to modern paleontology, modern birds must have appeared before the asteroid hit the earth: about 100 million years ago.
While the bird-like species were, at that time, not the dominant species, it’s speculated that they were the only dinosaur species to survive the ordeal.
The Tuatara, a species that looks like a dinosaur and is related – AdventureDinosaurs
It’s not always straightforward to determine whether one species is related to another, as we can see from the dinosaurs.
Thanks to modern taxonomy and scientific classification, we can get closer to our understanding of which species are the closest living things to dinosaurs, and I’ve tried to cover that in this article.
Now, does a tuatara measure up as a close relative to a T-Rex or a Spinosaurus?
If you are looking for a really cool dinosaur remote control robot, then take a look at these best choices from Amazon – they are sure to give your child a fun experience!
If you are looking for a really cool dinosaur remote control robot, then take a look at these best choices from Amazon – they are sure to give your child a fun experience!
If you are looking for a really cool dinosaur remote control robot, then take a look at these best choices from Amazon – they are sure to give your child a fun experience!