Bird Origins: The ìOld Storyî

• Fossils plus comparative anatomy showed that birds had come from ìreptilianî ancestors.

• But which ìreptilesî did birds come from?

  • Early suggestions that birds came from dinosaurs
  • Bird-dino link rejected at firstóprevailing idea that dinosaurs were slow, sluggish, and stupid
  • Birds though to have arisen separately from the ìthecodontsî, the basal archosaurs

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