Are birds related to alligators?
Alligators and birds are part of the same larger group, called archosaurs
, which has existed for 250 million years and which has given rise not only to birds and crocodilians, but also to dinosaurs.
And
they are most closely related to crocodiles
, which also came from archosaurs. This is what most people mean when they say that birds are reptiles, although technically, according to the phylogenetic system, birds, reptiles, and mammals all share a reptile-like ancestor.
What do birds and alligators have in common?
Birds, crocodiles and dinosaurs have much in common – including, it turns out,
their breath
. The hyper-efficient breathing system of birds is shared with alligators, and probably evolved in archosaurs, the common ancestor of crocodilians, birds and dinosaurs.
Alligators and their relatives are the last of the living reptiles that were closely related to
dinosaurs
, and their closest modern kin are birds. There is only one other alligator species, the Chinese alligator. Alligators and crocodiles are related.
It is correct to say that
birds are the closest living relatives to all EXTINCT dinosaurs
. The closest living relatives of ALL dinosaurs are the crocodilians (crocodiles, alligators, gharials).
Alligators and birds are part of the same larger group, called archosaurs
, which has existed for 250 million years and which has given rise not only to birds and crocodilians, but also to dinosaurs.
Which is the closest living relative to a bird?
Crocodiles
are the closest living relatives of the birds, sharing a common ancestor that lived around 240 million years ago and also gave rise to the dinosaurs.
Do alligators have dinosaur DNA?
Although they split off pretty early on,
dinosaurs and these animals share common ancestors
. Modern crocodiles and alligators are almost unchanged from their ancient ancestors of the Cretaceous period (about 145–66 million years ago).
Modern species share a common ancestor, but are neither descended from each other nor from some crude composite chimera, and
ducks are not descended from crocodiles
.
What is the common ancestor of birds and crocodiles?
Today, only the birds and crocodilians exist to provide a glimpse into the past glory of
archosaurs
. Archosauria is defined as the group that includes the common ancestor of crocodiles and birds and all of its descendants.
Are birds archosaurs?
Modern classification. Archosauria is normally defined as a crown group, which means that it only includes descendants of the last common ancestors of its living representatives.
In the case of archosaurs, these are birds and crocodilians
.
Rex and compared it to the same protein found in 21 modern species. They confirmed that the giant predator is closely related to chickens and ostriches, but
only to a lesser extent to reptiles such as alligators and crocodiles
, which were thought to be more closely related to dinosaurs than other living creatures.
What did alligators evolve from?
The first alligator ancestors evolved some 245 million years ago
. About 80 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, crocodilians appeared. This group includes alligatoroids, such as Brachychampsa, as well as their close relatives the crocodiles and caimans.
What is the common ancestor of birds?
Birds evolved from
a group of meat-eating dinosaurs called theropods
. That's the same group that Tyrannosaurus rex belonged to, although birds evolved from small theropods, not huge ones like T. rex. The oldest bird fossils are about 150 million years old.
What is the closest living relative to a T. rex?
The closest living relatives of Tyrannosaurus rex are birds such as
chickens and ostriches
, according to research published today in Science (and promptly reported in the New York Times).
Are birds technically reptiles?
Reptiles are vertebrates that have scales on at least some part of their body, leathery or hard-shelled eggs, and share a number of other features. Snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodilians, and
birds are reptiles
.
Was T. rex a bird or a lizard?
Here's what we now know:
The Tyrannosaurs rex looked more like a giant bird than a lizard
. It was covered in feathers, like many in the theropod family, of which all living species of bird are a part. Today's paleoart has caught up with this idea, and no self-respecting dinosaur aficionado would draw a T.
Was T. rex a bird or reptile?
STUDY INDICATES T-REX WAS
MAMMAL, NOT REPTILE
.
Reptiles are turtles, snakes, lizards, alligators and crocodiles
. Unlike amphibians, reptiles breathe only through their lungs and have dry, scaly skin that prevents them from drying out. Amphibians and reptiles are together called herpetofauna, or “herps” for short.
Are chickens descendants of T Rex?
Putting more meat on the theory that dinosaurs' closest living relatives are modern-day birds, molecular analysis of a shred of 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein — along with that of 21 modern species — confirms that
dinosaurs share common ancestry with chickens
, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, …
Did T Rex turn into a chicken?
In a word,
no. In the scheme of animal classification, T. rex and all other tyrannosaurs as well as chickens and all other birds all fit into the suborder Theropoda
. Theropods are a large and diverse group of animals that have hollow bones and three-toed limbs in common.
Are birds technically dinosaurs?
Ask your average paleontologist who is familiar with the phylogeny of vertebrates and they will probably tell you that
yes, birds (avians) are dinosaurs
. Using proper terminology, birds are avian dinosaurs; other dinosaurs are non-avian dinosaurs, and (strange as it may sound) birds are technically considered reptiles.
Ever since researchers sequenced the
chimp
genome in 2005, they have known that humans share about 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, making them our closest living relatives.
The DNA in alligators, crocodiles and gharials is about
93 percent
identical across the genome. By comparison, a human shares about 93 percent of his or her DNA with a macaque. A Texas Tech University biologist led a team of more than 50 scientists who mapped the genomes of three crocodilians.
Dinosaurs are part of the reptile group, and they're loosely related to all kinds of reptiles, including lizards, snakes, crocodiles, and turtles. After birds,
crocodiles
are the most closely related to dinosaurs.
Did birds evolve from reptiles?
Birds are dinosaurs. Actually, birds and mammals are technically reptiles, as
they descended from the very first reptile
. Birds are more intimately related to dinosaurs, as they branched off from a dinosaur. The first group of reptiles split 300 million years ago.
Do birds and reptiles have a common ancestor?
They concluded that
birds, mammals and reptiles all inherited their placodes from the same ancient reptilian ancestor
.
Are dinosaurs closer to birds or reptiles?
Dinosaurs and many other extinct forms are
more closely related to birds than to crocodiles
, so this definition would not only include all birds, but all dinosaurs and probably all pterosaurs.
Summary:
Turtles, not birds, have been found to be the closest relatives of crocodiles and alligators
, according to an analysis of the largest available collection of reptile genes.
4) Is a crocodile more closely related to a human or a cow? Why?
Equally related
, since it shares a distant common ancestry with both.
Having recently looked at more than a thousand of the least-changed regions in the genomes of turtles and their closest relatives, biologists have confirmed that
turtles are most closely related to crocodilians and birds
rather than to lizards, snakes, and tuataras.
What is the symbiotic relationship between a crocodile and a bird?
Egyptian plovers and crocodiles have a unique symbiotic relationship.
Because crocodiles cannot use dental floss, they get food stuck in their teeth
. All that food rots their teeth and probably causes them some pain. When the crocodile feels the need for a good tooth cleaning it will sit with its mouth wide open.
What is the common ancestor of birds and crocodiles?
Today, only the birds and crocodilians exist to provide a glimpse into the past glory of
archosaurs
. Archosauria is defined as the group that includes the common ancestor of crocodiles and birds and all of its descendants.
Why is a crocodile an Archosaur but not a dinosaur?
No, crocodiles are not dinosaurs. Crocodiles are reptiles. Even though they almost certainly have a common ancestor with dinosaurs, but
they are a separate branch of the reptile family tree
.
What is the symbiotic relationship between a crocodile and a bird?
Egyptian plovers and crocodiles have a unique symbiotic relationship.
Because crocodiles cannot use dental floss, they get food stuck in their teeth
. All that food rots their teeth and probably causes them some pain. When the crocodile feels the need for a good tooth cleaning it will sit with its mouth wide open.
What is the common ancestor of birds and crocodiles?
Today, only the birds and crocodilians exist to provide a glimpse into the past glory of
archosaurs
. Archosauria is defined as the group that includes the common ancestor of crocodiles and birds and all of its descendants.
