How did we switched from "Dinosaur are giant lizards" to "Dinosaur are giant birds"
When I was a kid, I learned about Dinosaur being "giant lizard", and it's been may-be 10 years, that I hear "Birds are dinosaurs".
I am curious on how the concept evolve, both among paleontologists, and among the general public.
You are viewing a single comment
All dinosaurs are reptiles, including birds. The major clade of dinosaurs to which birds belong is called theropods. The other well-known dinosaurs, sauropods (including all the huge quadrupedal herbivores), are totally extinct and have only very distant ancestry with birds and other reptiles.
By the way, crocodilians have been around for 250 million years, so they shared the earth with the huge dinosaurs of old! But they are not dinosaurs themselves.
Wow, I had no idea.
This is fairly recent bird lore. Like late 80s to 90s. It takes a while for schools to catch up so I missed it as well.
gasp and they were squamates