Dinosaur-bird connection a thing of the past
There are all sorts of birds. Some birds spend their entire lives living in total darkness in caves, others can soar higher than the highest mountains, while other birds can dive 50 metres underwater to catch their dinner.
They flock far and wide all over our planet. In fact, there are around 10,000 different species. This is roughly double the number of species of mammals, which number only about 5000.
But where did birds come from? After all, they look so weird, thanks to various bits of bizarre anatomy that no other animals have — feathers, beaks without teeth, wishbones and deep breast bones and even bones that are hollow and help them breathe.
Over the last few decades, we've slowly come to the amazing realisation that birds not only evolved from the dinosaurs, but that in fact, birds are dinosaurs.
Illustration by Douglas Holgate (Dinosaurs Aren't Dead, Pan Macmillan, 2010)
