• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

How Did Birds Survive While Dinosaurs Went Extinct?

February 7, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

The ConversationCurious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected].


If dinosaurs died, how come there are birds? Caiden S., age 9, Wylie, Texas

Advertisement

Everyone knows what a bird is – and pretty much everyone knows what a dinosaur is. But not everyone is aware that birds evolved from dinosaurs approximately 160 million years ago.

In fact, birds and dinosaurs lived together for about 100 million years. Birds descended from a particular group of dinosaurs called the dromaeosaurs, or “running lizards,” which were a family of feathered theropod or “beast foot” dinosaurs that included velociraptor.

But when an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago off the coast of what is now Mexico, dinosaurs went extinct – but some birds remained. You might wonder why.

By acting like detectives, scientists who specialize in bird evolution are trying to figure out why birds weren’t wiped out too. They piece together clues like fossils and other evidence about life on Earth long ago. For now, scientists have ideas about why birds survived, but no firm answers.

Perks of being toothless

Today’s birds have no teeth. Instead they have beaks or bills, which come in many shapes and sizes for eating and drinking. But some of the birds that lived in dinosaur times actually had teeth. Others did not.

In the foreground is an artist's rendering of a bird head. In the background is a fossil photo showing that bird's skull. Teeth are clearly seen in the jaws.
Ichthyornis dispar was a primitive seabird with teeth that lived during the late Cretaceous Period – from 100 million to 66 million years ago – in North America. Courtesy of Michael Hanson and Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar.

After the asteroid struck Earth long ago, all birds with teeth went extinct. But many of the toothless ones kept living. Some scientists think not having teeth is what allowed these birds to survive.

Fossils of early toothless birds show they were able to eat more plant-based food – specifically nuts, fruits and seeds. This meant they relied less on eating other animals than birds with teeth did. Some scientists think this difference in diet became a big advantage after the asteroid impact.

When the asteroid struck Earth, it immediately caused massive tsunamis and earthquakes. A giant pulse of heat from the impact caused enormous wildfires near where the asteroid hit. In the months that followed, huge amounts of dust filled the layer of air that surrounds Earth. It blocked the sun, making less light available for plants to grow.

Advertisement

For animals that ate plants, there was much less food. Many went extinct, which spelled trouble for the animals that ate them.

Since so many animal species died – and plants were struggling to get enough sunlight – food would have been hard to find if you were a bird. But if you could peck the ground and find buried seeds or nuts to eat, that might have made all the difference in your ability to survive as a species.

How science works

Of course, it’s possible other factors caused toothless birds to survive while their toothy cousins perished – including luck.

For now, it’s a mystery with no definite answer. This is how science works. Scientists formulate ideas or hypotheses using existing knowledge and information. Then they test their ideas – either by conducting experiments or by gathering more evidence. This information either supports or disproves their ideas.

Advertisement

So the scientists who study bird evolution are ready to revise the story of how birds made it and dinosaurs didn’t as they collect more information from rocks, fossils and ancient DNA.


Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to [email protected]. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.The Conversation

Chris Lituma, Assistant Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Resources, West Virginia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Norway coalition talks start, with climate and oil in focus
  2. Indonesian fintech Xendit is now a unicorn, with $150M in fresh funding led by Tiger Global
  3. U.S. Senator Cruz vows to block new Democratic debt ceiling ploy
  4. Yellen says U.S. may exhaust cash by Oct 18 barring debt ceiling rise

Source Link: How Did Birds Survive While Dinosaurs Went Extinct?

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • World-First Footage Shows How Ship Anchors Are Ripping Up Antarctica’s Once-Pristine Seabed Ecosystem
  • NASA Orbiter Captures Gigantic Arsia Mons Volcano Peeking Through Martian Clouds At Dawn
  • Prepare To Have Your Brain Scrambled By Canada’s Island In A Lake On An Island In A Lake On An Island
  • Why Did Street Lights In The US Turn Purple?
  • World-First Fossil Discovery Of Sauropod Stomach Contents Reveals They Didn’t Chew Their Food
  • These Galactic Clusters Smashed Into Each Other. Giant Bow Shocks Suggest They’re About To Go For Round 2
  • Wild Fossil Discovery In Prehistoric “Latrine” Suggests Butterflies Have Been Around Longer Than Flowers
  • What Is The Longest-Living Whale?
  • It’s Official: Those Ludicrous TikTok Skincare Routines For Teens Are Not A Good Idea
  • The Fastest Speed That Humans Have Traveled Is 39,937.7 Kilometers Per Hour
  • What Is The Ocean’s Longest Fish?
  • Meet Sutter Buttes: “The World’s Smallest Mountain Range”
  • As The Rest Of The World Heats Up, “The North Atlantic Warming Hole” Is Set To Get Even Cooler
  • What Are The White Stripes You Find On Chicken Breasts?
  • The Biggest Explosion Event Since The Big Bang, Dead Sea Scrolls May Have Been Written By Original Authors Of The Bible, And Much More This Week
  • The Strange “Egg-Laying” Rockfaces Of Planet Earth
  • One Of The World’s Largest And Rarest “Fancy Red” Diamonds Has Been Studied For The First Time
  • The Simple Rule That Seems To Govern How Life Is Organized On Earth
  • This Paradisiacal Island In The Philippines Had Advanced Maritime Culture 35,000 Years Ago
  • Neanderthals Faced A Catastrophic Population Collapse 110,000 Years Ago
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version