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Asteroid Impact Helped Create the Birds We Know Today (sciencemag.org)

Posted by timothy on from the including-delicious-turkey dept.

sciencehabit writes: Every bird alive today can trace its ancestry to creatures that lived about 95 million years ago on a chunk of land that split off from the supercontinent Gondwana, a new study suggests. The new family tree, compiled using information from fossils and from genetic analyses of modern birds, also reveals that this lineage underwent a major burst of evolution after an asteroid slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago and killed off the rest of their dinosaurian kin.

5 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Thanks a lot! by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Funny

    So it's the fault of that asteroid that I have to listen to that damned mocking bird all night?

    1. Re:Thanks a lot! by Gavagai80 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Better than staying awake listening for a t-rex all night.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    2. Re:Thanks a lot! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, have you seen the way they eat? No manners, smacking their lips and making all those disgusting crunching sounds.

      I think T-Rex's greatest survival strategy was they had to have a lot of Sex, because their arms were too short to masturbate.

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      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  2. Oh, have you not heard? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It is my understanding that everyone had heard...

  3. Re:Geographical location? by gtall · · Score: 4, Funny

    Unless them precursor birds hadn't yet figured out how to use their feathers to fly. Many dinosaurs had feathers about the time they went extinct but couldn't get off the ground due to weight, no traffic control, really bad transponders, etc. It was hard work to fly back then.