Shaking the Dinosaur Tree
1,478 views · Published 6 September 2017 · 0:18 · Indexed 25 October 2026
Channel: New Scientist · 2017 · Science & Technology
66 million years later – could we have got the terrible lizards all wrong? Dinosaurs are the most iconic of extinct animals, famous for their gigantic size and fearsome appearance. However, although the dinosaur story ended with a bang – when a meteorite wiped them all out, with the exception of their descendants, the birds – it began with a whimper. The first dinosaurs were small, obscure creatures living the shadow of other reptiles that previously ruled the world. Ironically, dinosaurs owed their later dominance to another earlier extinction event that wiped out these competitors and enabled them to move into roles previously occupied by other animals. Recent discoveries of early dinosaurs and their relatives are shedding much needed light on these first stages of dinosaur evolution. New work on their family tree is also revealing surprising results on how they were related to each other, potentially overturning 130 years of dogma on the classification of these amazing animals. Get your tickets to New Scientist Live on SEPT 28, 2017: http://ow.ly/6z2b30eXgDn
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