Did you know that birds are widely considered to be the only descendants of dinosaurs? You might be wondering if this means that birds are also considered dinosaurs; and they are. If you want to learn more about these birds and how they survived the extinction, go read this story.
How did birds survive the K-T Extinction?
Scientists widely agree that the reason why birds were able to survive was because of their smaller size, ability to fly, and their wide diets. Small size helps to limit the resources they use, which is useful as other plants were also destroyed. Being able to fly helped birds travel to safer places and find new food sources. Birds have a specialized beak which is adapted to their environment. For example, Parrots have short curved beaks which allow them to split open hard nuts and fruits. This allows them to thrive in many different environments even if some resources are scarce.
How do prehistoric birds compare to modern birds?
Prehistoric birds were bigger than modern birds today. Scientists estimate that these birds could vary between a few ounces to 8 feet depending on species. Most of the bigger birds were flightless however as the smaller an object or animal is, the easier it is to fly. Older prehistoric birds such as the Archaeopteryx also didn’t have any beaks and instead had teeth unlike modern birds. There was also a genus class of birds called Terror Birds which will be talked about in the next section
Terror Birds
Terror birds are one of the scariest birds to ever live on earth. These birds are taller than a man at around 10 feet tall and they are the only carnivorous flightless bird ever to live on Earth. These birds are Apex predators in their ecosystem eating small, rabbit-sized prey. These birds hunted hiding in the grass and ambushed prey with their powerful beak and talons. Terror birds also had long legs allowing them to run at around 30 mph, which is around 3 mph faster than the current record of human speed. Terror Birds are believed to have gone extinct due to new predators who ate most of their food supply.
Why are modern birds so small if they’re dinosaurs?
Birds became smaller as a result of evolution. Some benefits that birds got from this was that birds could fly more freely, use less resources, and go to a wide variety of habitats. Birds specialize in flight to survive and having a good ratio of wing size and weight is important for flying for long periods of time, so, birds became smaller. Being smaller allows birds to use less resources which allows many birds to live in the same area and makes finding a sufficient amount of food easier. Birds becoming smaller also allows them to live on trees which are great for shelter and food.
In conclusion, prehistoric birds are vastly different to the birds we see today, but in some ways they are similar. Birds as a species have changed a lot, evolving new features like beaks and smaller size, but lost some things like teeth and being a terrifying animal to encounter. If you personally want to learn about these birds or just dinosaurs in general, you can go to this link for a list of these dinosaurs and illustrations of them.
