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Why do they say that the tyrannosaurus rex is a long ancient ancestor of modern day chickens? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Did they determine this by comparing what DNA fragments they've managed to recover, or by physical skeletal structure similarities, or what?

I'm no expert in the field, but I just don't see it.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (4 children)

That's a mental shortcut, the birds came from dinosaurs, the birds cladistically ARE dinosaurs; birds, dinosaurs and crocodilians are archosaurs, but birds are closest dinosaurs relatives

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Okay, gotcha.

Still, maybe I'm a dumdum, but aren't alligators and crocodiles and similar species mighty close to the ancient dinosaurs?

Edit: Are those closer or further away from dinosaur relatives than birds? Either way, what makes one group of creatures closer to dinosaurs than the other?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

As for what makes some clades closer to ones than others, we know when they appeared in fossil records relative to each other

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