Do you like your dinosaurs breaded, roasted or cooked?

While that may sound bizarre, it is not, because chickens and feathered birds are now know to be the last of the dinosaurs.

Firstly, that huge dinosaurs once lived on much of the planet it too well attested by the fossil record to be doubted.  Skeletons that are almost 100% intact have occasionally been recovered¹ and some had skeletons well over 40 feet long.  Alberta's badlands are constantly revealing more as are digs in the Gobi desert half- way around the world and in Europe. 

 

Thanks to finds in the Gobi we now know for certain dinosaurs laid eggs, were warm blooded like mammals and birds and at least some had feathers.  They also had relatively thin hollow bones like chickens and birds as well  -- or else their bones would have been so heavy they could not have moved.

 

The old idea that all dinosaurs were reptiles like crocodiles and lizards is no longer accepted and now dinosaurs are classified by their pelvis as bird-like or reptile-like².

 

So it seems that those chickens and geese on a farm and those birds chirping outside your window are the last of the dinosaurs.  

 

Their reduced size is a well known environmental adaptation. Animals will grow only as large as their food supply and other factors allow. And on this point: ‘survival of the fittest’ based on environmental pressures, Charles Darwin was correct.

 

So next time you have chicken or goose or duck for dinner or spicy wings while watching the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup or World Cup of Soccer, enjoy your dinosaur.

 

PS: If you wish to see numerous dinosaur fossils and skeletons up close, the most extensive and well explained collections in North America are at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois -- home to “Sue”, the largest and 80% complete T-Rex skeleton ever found, and the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, to the west of Central Park.   

 

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1. The remains of a juvenile predator dinosaur have been unearthed in Germany in 2011 with 98 per cent of its skeleton intact. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2048259/Theropod-dinosaur-skeleton-intact-Germany.html.
A different dinosaur infant  was recovered almost intact in Alberta in 2013. http://www.slashgear.com/baby-dinosaur-skeleton-is-so-intact-scientists-can-tell-how-it-died-27306985/.  
2. dinosaurs have either “lizard hipped” or “bird hipped” pelvises.  See point #4 of  “The 10 Most Important Dinosaur Bones” at http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/dinosaurdiscovery/tp/The-Most-Important-Dinosaur-Bones.htm