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How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds
An anonymous reader writes: Discoveries have shown that bird-specific features like feathers began to emerge long before the evolution of birds, indicating that birds simply adapted a number of pre-existing features to a new use. And recent research suggests that a few simple changes — among them the adoption of a more babylike skull shape into adulthood — likely played essential roles in the final push to bird-hood. Not only are birds much smaller than their dinosaur ancestors, they closely resemble dinosaur embryos. Adaptations such as these may have paved the way for modern birds' distinguishing features, namely their ability to fly and their remarkably agile beaks. The work demonstrates how huge evolutionary changes can result from a series of small evolutionary steps.
You can't fit dinosaur legs in the fryer, so of course they had to get smaller. Defective by (intelligent) design.
Birds are dinosaurs with a genetic condition stunting their development. Yes, this will end well.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Magic!
They saw their own extinction coming - it wasn't that hard to detect the meteor - and began a secret government project to breed themselves into small, flying creatures.
Only way they could think of to survive.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Beaks have *one* joint. How the hell they be agile?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Now you know once and for all, dinosaurs taste like .... Chicken!
What would be really interesting is to know how the family tree shakes out and what our domestic chicken used to be. It could have been a T-Rex, Triceratops, or a raptor. Of course, it could have been something else all together. Either way, it would be fun to think about each time you visit KFC.
I used to own an African Grey parrot who definitely had the disposition and attitude of a T-rex.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
"How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds"
Lemme guess. You didn't read the label and washed them in hot water?
Go not to /. for intelligent discussion of evolutionary biology.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Do
not
visit
KFC.
Okay, maybe the dinos shrank, but those droppings on my car look like they came from a damn brontosaurus!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Now you know once and for all, dinosaurs taste like .... Chicken!
Unlikely. Small animals taste like chicken, including rabbits, squirrels, lizards, snakes, even frog legs. Big animals taste more like beef, even if they are birds, such as an ostrich. A T-Rex likely tasted more like beef than chicken.
Even that is a misnomer. It's more of a blend, not distinct steps.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Well, a T-rex was a large meat eater ... so I'm thinking bear or wolf might be better guesses.
And I gather as a rule large meat eaters don't make for good eating.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They were in the pool! They were in the pool!
I'm hoping to be educated here by someone with better (any?) knowledge of the fossil record. :)
My general sense is that pretty much old everything is big. But what if fossils expanded with time?
One possible mechanic for this might be the metric expansion of space, which supposedly isn't discerned at small scales. But perhaps, over a long period of time, with molecules uncohesive enough to be replaced by minerals through diffusion in fossilization, perhaps metric expansion would provide just enough space here and there for an extra atom to diffuse in, and over time, this effect might expand a fossil's size. If this were possible, might we have a record of the history of metric expansion of space?
If it were true, I would expect fossil species--those species alive today but old--to have old equivalents that are bigger, and that these fossil species would all have these equivalents and their fossil expansion for the same age would be roughly equivalent.
Which is where I need someone with better knowledge of the fossil record.
"adapted a number of pre-existing features to a new use" = Exaptation also referred to as a Co-option, this is a shift in the function a biological feature serves in the organism. The trait may have been non-adaptive (i.e. without function) before the functional shift, for example it may have been a Spandrel.
"adoption of a more babylike skull shape into adulthood" = Neoteny, or the distortion of the developmental timeline as to extend the duration of what was previously a juvenile stage into adulthood. Developmental pathways - which are regulated in part by specific biomolecular pathways - provide evolution with a set of channels through which it can naturally and easily evolve; easy to reach and viable variations morphology a few mutations away! Famously, this is how humans developed their marvellous cabbage heads.
"huge evolutionary changes can result from a series of small evolutionary steps" not equal, but at least highly related to the concept of Punctuated Equilibrium.
This is a type of explanation draws on the very important concept of Historical Contingency, i.e. the idea that the particulars of a (natural) history processes are largely determined by the coincidence of circumstances which are effectively random, and therefore on a larger scale seem not to be completely deterministic or teleological processes (at least not completely, although I cannot deny there may be some features of the process which are). Whether completely true or false or anything in between, I like this approach to explanation in historical processes of complex systems. It seems to imply use of a type of simplifying assumption which might call a principle of Epistemic Parsimony in complex system; you assume that most types of events are the result of processes to complex to comprehend and therefore - for you as observer - are effectively random. Of course a collection of random events can yield a perfectly tractable and even almost deterministic cohort, just as conversely a collection of deterministic events can yield a delightfully random swarm.
Most of the above concepts were - if not explicitly (co)developed and conceived - championed and expounded by Stephen Jay Gould, and represent a school of thought that critiqued the so called Panglossian Adaptationism which Dawkins, Dennett and (formerly) Williams explound/ed.
Jack Horner, Building a Dinosaur from a Chicken:
https://www.ted.com/talks/jack_horner_building_a_dinosaur_from_a_chicken?language=en
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(someone knows how we cook our chicken)
Well, dinosaurs were divided into two main groups, the lizard-hipped and the bird-hipped dinosaurs. Birds evolved from the lizard-hipped dinosaurs, and the bird-hipped dinosaurs died out.
Reptile is a catch-all term that doesn't really mean anything. Crocodiles are much more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than they are to any other reptiles (so should probably be grouped with birds rather than lizards and snakes), and extinct "reptiles" like dimetrodon are more closely related to humans than they are to any extant reptiles.
Have you ever actually eaten rabbits, squirrels, lizards, snakes or frog legs? They taste nothing like chicken. Why do people always say this? Or people's pallets really so fucked up they can't distinguish between different types of meats?
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Now you know once and for all, dinosaurs taste like .... Chicken!
What would be really interesting is to know how the family tree shakes out and what our domestic chicken used to be. It could have been a T-Rex, Triceratops, or a raptor. Of course, it could have been something else all together. Either way, it would be fun to think about each time you visit KFC.
AFAIK, the likely ancestors of the modern domestic chicken (Gallus gallus, the red junglefowl) were the Galliformes present in the Cretaceous period coincident with T-Rex, Triceratops, and Velociraptors... You have to go back to the Jurassic period and the Theropoda to maybe find the early Tyrannosaurus as a distant cousin (T-rex is a species of Tyrannosaurus family), but likely the evolution is from a *smaller* Theropoda...
And at which point did they become warm-blooded animals? How does that happen?
I think it's because everyone overcooks the hell out of everything in fear of bacteria, and add tons of additives to restore "flavor" that they don't ever taste chicken.
"Chicken" Top Ramen sure doesn't taste like chicken.
They don't taste like chicken... but some things taste more like chicken than other foods we are used to. For instance, alligator tastes nothing like chicken, but relatively speaking, it tastes WAY more like white meat chicken than beef. Frogs legs are in the same category for me. Squirrel I have only had once, and I didn't like it... but maybe it was similar to dark meat chicken, which I am not a huge fan of. Never tried the others on this short list.
Reptile is a catch-all term that doesn't really mean anything. Crocodiles are much more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than they are to any other reptiles (so should probably be grouped with birds rather than lizards and snakes), and extinct "reptiles" like dimetrodon [wikipedia.org] are more closely related to humans than they are to any extant reptiles.
Birds are warm-blooded, while crocodiles, lizards, and snakes are all cold-blooded, thus the distinction and groupings.
Birds are warm-blooded, while crocodiles, lizards, and snakes are all cold-blooded, thus the distinction and groupings.
And actually this distinction is why today we consider dinosaurs to be more closely related to the modern bird than to the modern reptile.
Here's an overview of the change from a 3-chambered heart and endothermy to a 4-chambered heart and exothermy.
http://www.realsceptic.com/2011/11/29/short-essay-the-evolution-of-endothermy/
Not sure about rabbits and squirrels, but I would think chicken, lizards, snakes, and frog legs taste "like dinosaur" since they are descended from dinosaurs ...
Or people's pallets really so fucked up they can't distinguish between different types of meats?
My palate may be screwed up, but my homonym detector is in prime form!
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Have you ever actually eaten rabbits, squirrels, lizards, snakes or frog legs?
All of the above, and then some. For the best selection, go to the West Virginia Roadkill Cookoff.
They taste nothing like chicken. Why do people always say this?
We say that because it is the closest point of reference when talking to normal people. If I am talking to a nerd co-worker, I will say that possum tastes like chicken. If I am talking to one of my hillbilly relatives, I will say it tastes like racoon.
Well, a T-rex was a large meat eater ... so I'm thinking bear or wolf might be better guesses.
And I gather as a rule large meat eaters don't make for good eating.
Predators aren't bad "eatin" but they're terrible for farming.
I've eaten crocodile, wolf and dingo. They're not bad, much like Kangaroo they tend to have a very rich flavour. The problem with sourcing this meat is that it needs to be hunted as farming it is prohibitively expensive and its also dangerous to hunt so it tends to be rare and relatively expensive. That being said, I regularly eat shark as it's the cheapest fillet for Fish and Chips in Australia (often called Flake in Oz) although I occasionally splash out on a bit of Cod or Hake (same family as Haddock).
The thing about meat is, the more sedentary an animal is, the more tender the meat is. This is why the cheap (tougher) cuts of a cow come from the shoulder and other parts that get exercised regularly. That being said, if prepared right, a beef shoulder can be quite nice. Predatory animals are a lot more active than our farm animals so cuts from most predators are tougher, which also limits the way in which they can be prepared. So I imagine T-Rex meat prepared like a steak would be a good alternative for boot leather but it might make a good stew or American style BBQ.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
we have this gem.
That's arbitrary. It'd make just as much sense grouping animals by what colour they are. Crocodiles used to be warm blooded, too, so when did they switch from being dinosaurs to reptiles?
They didn't, dinosaurs and crocodiles have a common descendent (archosaurs) Crocodiles were never descended from dinosaurs, their parents are just very close in the family tree.
Interestingly enough there's still some debate about whether dinosaurs were warm blooded, or had a more complex metabolism with characteristics of both warm and cold blooded animals. And archosaurs are also likely to have had such a complex metabolism, so it's unlikely crocodilians ever were descended from anything fully warm blooded.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Nice. Totally missed that in my post. Yet another Doh! moment.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
They really were that big. And they could get away with being that big because... GRAVITY WAS LESS POWERFUL BACK THEN!
Modern thinking is that crocodiles descended directly from a warm blooded ancestor, and reverted to being cold blooded, because there's no reason for the warm blooded characteristics they have now without having had a warm blooded ancestor, and there's not been enough time to evolve new things rather than revert.