Macro-evolution: Explain the emergence of all bird species out of the dinosauer/bird

[Iamme]

*Can* anyone? Let's forget the monkey/ape to human argument for a moment. I think it might be easier to try to comprehend evolution by looking at the bird. Why? Because scientists are pretty sure that feathers developed on a dinausauer that resembled both bird and dinosauer. Whether it could fly or not is inconsequential. Let's just say that this particular creature was the father to all birds.

You mean to tell me that the woodpecker, hummingbird, eagle, chicadee, turkey, owl and ostrich all came out of that creature? I'd like to see a paleontologist do the lineage on this...to show me the forks in the road...to show what the creatures looked like as they forked.

Is there any evidence by observing anything today, that creatures undergo quite radical changes over time?

It's one thing to consider a common ancestry between a hummingbird, and an owl or ostrich, let's say...and quite another to argue that a spotted leopard is related to an unspotted leopard.

[Iamme]

I should have thrown the peacock into the mix as well. Quite a spectacular creature and how it fans out it's display. Then there is the pelican, storks, vultures......

[Ladewig]

If you make posts about the mechanics of evolution in the politics forum instead of the science forum, some posters are going to think you are a troll.

[toddjh]

Hell, that's nothing. The chihuahua, great dane, beagle, malamute, basset hound, shih tzu, mastiff, pug, labrador, and collie all descended from wolves, in just ten or twenty millennia.

Multiply that amount of time by a couple thousand, and imagine what can happen to a feathered lizard.

Jeremy

[Iamme]

(Ladewig)

If you make posts about the mechanics of evolution in the politics forum instead of the science forum, some posters are going to think you are a troll.

(Iamme) Yikes. Can't have that. Maybe moderator will transfer it as they did when I posted about something religious and they deemed it humorous and put it in the humor forum.

[crimresearch]

I don't think Iamme is a troll..but i do think that Iamme is evolving into JayGW...
:D

[The Fool]

Originally posted by Iamme
*Can* anyone? Let's forget the monkey/ape to human argument for a moment.
Yes, lets forget it as the only people who propose it are those that are ignorant of the fact that nobody seriously suggests it. Modern Homo spiens sapiens did not evolve from current species of monkey/ape...

There was a common ancestor.....there is a difference.

Incredulity is all you have to offer...

[Dr Adequate]

Can I explain it?

Certainly, my dear chap.

It happened through a process of inheritance with random variation and natural selection.

What did you do during biology classes instead of paying attention?

[Jeff Corey]

Iamme,
What about the crow? What kind of dinosaur could have turned into a crow?
I'm wondering where the hollow light bones arose.
Pterodons?

[cbish]

You mean to tell me that the woodpecker, hummingbird, eagle, chicadee, turkey, owl and ostrich all came out of that creature? I understand what you're saying. A few years ago, my wife & I went to go see the movie Titanic . Well, I only made it through the first scene when my bowels started churning. It was a big dump! 3+ hours on the ol' sh!!ter! When I returned, some old woman was dropping a jewel off of a ship. "What happened to Titanic ?", I asked my wife. "This is it" she replied. "No way, You mean to tell me that old woman is the busty red-head at the beginning? What happened to the ship?" My wife tried to explain the movie to me, but it's clear to me she's an idiot. How could that last scene in that movie be the same movie as I saw at the beginning?

Utter nonsense!

[pmurray]

Originally posted by Iamme
You mean to tell me that the woodpecker, hummingbird, eagle, chicadee, turkey, owl and ostrich all came out of that creature? I'd like to see a paleontologist do the lineage on this...to show me the forks in the road...to show what the creatures looked like as they forked.


Sure! Go to tolweb.org.

The lineage is:


Dinosauria
Theropoda (Bipedal predatory dinosaurs)
Coelurosauria (Birds, tyrannosaurs, velociraptors, etc.)
Aves (birds)
Euornithes (true birds)
Neornithes (modern birds)


And at that point, it branches out and the website is not filled in.

The point of this list being that these are not simply categories, but rather that the reason life splits up so nicely into categories is that it is the [i]result[/] of modification with descent.

Thus, it actually happened that there was an individual (or small population) among the Dinosauria which became the progenitors of the Theropoda, and a different individual (or set of individiduals) whose descendants are the Sauropodomorpha (Long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs).

[Kiless]

Originally posted by cbish
I understand what you're saying. A few years ago, my wife & I went to go see the movie Titanic . Well, I only made it through the first scene when my bowels started churning. It was a big dump! 3+ hours on the ol' sh!!ter! When I returned, some old woman was dropping a jewel off of a ship. "What happened to Titanic ?", I asked my wife. "This is it" she replied. "No way, You mean to tell me that old woman is the busty red-head at the beginning? What happened to the ship?" My wife tried to explain the movie to me, but it's clear to me she's an idiot. How could that last scene in that movie be the same movie as I saw at the beginning?

Utter nonsense!

LOL!! You sure you're not Australian, by any chance? :D

[Eos of the Eons]

Wellllll we can start with scales...and their paving the way to feathers. Then just look at the fact that there were flying dinos. Chuck on some feathers and other evolutionary adaptations (hollow bones, adaptations in the chest area for muscles) and bingo...birds. We even have flying mammals (so it's not so farfetched to see birds and their traits evolving from the reptile stage if you can see mammals taking on traits to fly and retaining mammalian traits instead of relying on feathers, etc.). Anybody want to quibble about bat evolution?

Did you know in the Cretaceous period there were birds with teeth?

Well, that's as easily as I can put it without going into all the better details over time.

I just understand why it seems so complicated to some. Any specific questions?

A good overview of all the adaptations that came together:

http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/terry.derting/anatomyatlas/trent_lebaron/bird_evolution.html

[cbish]

Kiless wrote: You sure you're not Australian, by any chance? Nope! My family is from Gagen,Ireland(Dead center of the country)...emmigrant circa gold-rush California 1850. I bet there's some speciation occurring in the family (i.e.: Jack Daniels vs. Jameson or Bushmill;) )

We're already seeing above at the last wedding.

Anyway, I'll have you know, that lame, I mean lamme, and I will not be dupped! How can such wonderful creatures exists in todays world? How can such beautiful perfection that we see today exist? Instead of asking us to answer questions that can be explained so simply over a simple internet search of the topic, I'm sure lamme will give us a full explanation as to how these organisms came about.

So, lamme, where did the woodpecker......etc....come from?

[richardm]

Originally posted by Iamme
I should have thrown the peacock into the mix as well. Quite a spectacular creature and how it fans out it's display.

Funnily enough, male pheasants fan out their tails in a similar waywhile displaying, except they hold the feathers horizontal while they spread them, so obviously they can't spread them as far.

And pigeons will fan out their tails in a similar way while displaying, except they hold the feathers vertically downwards, so obviously they can't spread them as far.

Amazing how birds can be so different yet have so many similiarities! It's almost as though they had a common ancestor or something.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Iamme
[BIs there any evidence by observing anything today, that creatures undergo quite radical changes over time?

It's one thing to consider a common ancestry between a hummingbird, and an owl or ostrich, let's say...and quite another to argue that a spotted leopard is related to an unspotted leopard. [/B]
lamme,

Do you like wintergreen?

[alfaniner]

Originally posted by Iamme
...
Is there any evidence by observing anything today, that creatures undergo quite radical changes over time?
...

Take a look at any adult. Now go look at a baby.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by alfaniner
Take a look at any adult. Now go look at a baby.

I also have some quite pretty caterpillars out in my back garden.

[CurtC]

Originally posted by The Fool
Yes, lets forget it as the only people who propose it are those that are ignorant of the fact that nobody seriously suggests it. Modern Homo spiens sapiens did not evolve from current species of monkey/ape...She didn't say "current species." I'm quite sure that if you took the creature which was the common ancestor to humans and gorillas, it would be classified as an ape. And I don't even mind folks calling it a "monkey," since in lay usage monkey = primate.

[Orangutan]

pmurray:

Thank you for that link, it's great! I spent quite a while exploring there.

Orangutan. (Pongo pygmaeus). ;)

[drkitten]

Originally posted by CurtC
She didn't say "current species." I'm quite sure that if you took the creature which was the common ancestor to humans and gorillas, it would be classified as an ape. And I don't even mind folks calling it a "monkey," since in lay usage monkey = primate.

I'd also lay large odds that the common ancestor between humans and spider monkeys would be recognizably a monkey.

[Mojo]

It seems that some more evidence for the dinosaur/bird lineage has emerged: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1569897,00.html

[H3LL]

Iamme, if you have problems with birds having a common ancestor you are going to have a real problem with elephants, monkeys, whales, cod, pandas, snakes, worms, T-Rex, octopus, Arnold Schwarzenegger and even wombats having a common ancestor.

BTW I mixed groups and specific animals for a reason.

[pupdog]

What, we should do your homework for you?

Go to a library and read the literature relating to bird origins. The technical papers are the best sources, but you might start with semi-popular books such as "Dinosaurs of the Air: The Evolution and Loss of Flight in Dinosaurs and Birds" by Gregory Paul, and "Mesozoic Birds" by Luis Chiappe and Lawrence Witmer. Don't forget to read all of the references contained in these books.

And don't assume that evolutionary theory suggests that a Tyrannnosaurus rex laid and egg, and out hatched a hummingbird, and that a Lagosuchus laid an egg and out hatched an ostrich!

[materia3]

Originally posted by pupdog
What, we should do your homework for you?

Go to a library and read the literature relating to bird origins. The technical papers are the best sources, but you might start with semi-popular books such as "Dinosaurs of the Air: The Evolution and Loss of Flight in Dinosaurs and Birds" by Gregory Paul, and "Mesozoic Birds" by Luis Chiappe and Lawrence Witmer. Don't forget to read all of the references contained in these books.

And don't assume that evolutionary theory suggests that a Tyrannnosaurus rex laid and egg, and out hatched a hummingbird, and that a Lagosuchus laid an egg and out hatched an ostrich!


You can also go to the source and read the theories proposed by Bakker. When he first pubished The Dinosaur Heresies back in 1986 (with his theories predating that) it was heretical. What I remember Bakker saying among other things is the undeniable fact that if you strip away the external trappings of a crocodile and a turkey, both of similar size, lay both the viscera of the chest and abdominal cavities out on a table side by side you can't tell which was the bird and which was the reptile. In fact living crocs while outwardly so very different are so inwardly the same as birds there are some who want to move crocs into members of the Aves. Crocs now are called Archosaurs or the last of the ruling reptiles. Bakker also has an excellent anatomical argument regarding hip structure (see bird-hipped dinosaurs) which further confirms the lineage. There are living reptiles which run bipedally, like birds, which also have similar hip structure to them. Bakker hangs his findings on evidence of homeothermy in dinosaurs, hip structure and internal anatomy of living birds and reptiles. This is the work that started it all so it's an excellent place to start.

Birds do have leathery scaley skin and definiite reptilian scales on their clawed legs. There is a primitive bird species in Papua New Guinea known as the Pitohui.

(see: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20041110/Note2.asp)

that even secretes a venomous skin secretion similar to many amphibians.

And if you really want to blow your mind, look up the Duck Billed Platypus and Spiney Echnida. These mammals have fur, lay eggs,
have duck bills like ducks, scaley legs and the platypus has webbed feet with a venom injecting gland and spur. After their eggs hatch they suckle their young through primitive mammary or milk glands. Explain these improbable creatures. My money is on the duck billed platypus which shares so many avian and mammalian characteristics in one organism there could be no doubt one has evolved from the other. End of argument.


The Dinosaur Heresies: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction
Robert T. Bakker
Paperback - 481 pages Reissue edition
August 1996 (one of a number of subsequent reprints of 1986 original)
Kensington Pub Corp (Trd)
ISBN: 0821756087

(reviewer: Mike Taylor, UK)
I bought this on a whim in, oh, let's see, it must have been about 1990 - certainly pre-Jurassic Park anyway. It's the book that re-awakened my interest in dinosaurs, portraying them as beautiful, elegant, powerful animals totally at odds with what was then the public image of dinosaurs. Specifically, it paints a picture of warm-blooded, fast-running, active dinosaurs: sauropods rearing on their hind legs, cracking their tails like whips, and so on.

The book presents convincing informal arguments, although it's very short on calculations that would lend weight to some of Bakker's specific conclusion (e.g. that T. rex could run at 40 mph.) But to my mind, that's not really important: the heart of this book is not an argument but an image: a reconstruction of dinosaurs that gives them a life they'd not had (for me anyway) before. This new image is built not only by the text, but also by Bakker's own gorgeous black-and-white illustrations.

Of course, a decade on, most of Bakker's ``heresies'' are now firmly entrenched as palaeontological orthdoxy. That might detract a bit from the raciness of the read, but it speaks well of Bakker's perception and determination to push views which, at the time, were not widely shared.

http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/dino/books/#dh

[pupdog]

Since Bakker's The Dinosaur Heresies was published in 1986, an awful lot of fossil material has been found that further details dinosaur-bird affinities.

I'll hypothesize (because I don't have the time right now to check), that platypus-bird similarities are superficial; if you look into the "bill" development, I suspect you will find significant differences. Mustn't be fooled by convergent evolution.

Also, consider taxonomy. If Linnaeus had been familiar with all of the bird/reptile fossil material available today, he likely would have classified birds and dinosaurs as a group within the reptiles (as some do today).