JURASSIC PARK REVISITED

JURASSIC PARK REVISITED





An illustration of the feathered dinosaur Microraptor as it pounces on a nest of primitive birds (sinornis). A study led by a University of Adelaide scientist has shown how massive, meat-eating, ground-dwelling dinosaurs -the theropods -evolved in over a period of 50 million years into agile flyers: they just kept shrinking and shrinking. The study presented a detailed family tree of the dinosaurs and their bird descendants which maps out this unlikely transformation. They showed that the branch of theropod dinosaurs which gave rise to modern birds were the only dinosaurs that kept getting smaller. These bird ancestors also evolved new adaptations like feathers and wings four times faster than other dinosaurs