How Are Dinosaurs And Animals Today Alike

Will there always be dinosaurs again? — Anonymous

What an interesting question! Well, technically dinosaurs are still here in the form of birds. Just like you're a direct descendant of your grandparents, birds are the simply remaining straight descendants of dinosaurs.

_3D T. rex rendering_ — *Tyrannosaurus rex* belonged to a dinosaur grouping called theropods. Shutterstock

Simply I suppose what you're really request is whether dinosaurs similar Tyrannosaurus or Triceratops could ever exist again. Although that would be fascinating, the respond is almost definitely no.

While there's but one generation between you and your grandparents – that is, your parents – there are many millions of generations between today's birds and their aboriginal dinosaurs ancestors.

This is why today'south birds wait, sound and behave so differently to the prehistoric beasts that one time roamed Globe.

Animals evolve to change, just tin't choose how

To sympathise this, we accept to sympathize "evolution". This is a process that explains how every living thing (including humans) evolved from by living things over millions, or even billions, of years.

Different animals evolve their own differences to help them survive in the earth. For example, 66 million years ago, birds survived the catastrophic consequence that killed all other dinosaurs and marked the finish of the Mesozoic era.

3D rendering of _T. rex_ facing off against a _Triceratops_ herd. — Fossils suggest face-offs between *T. rex* and *Triceratops* were common. Shutterstock

After this, a blanket of ash wrapped around the earth, cooling it and blocking out the sunlight plants demand to survive. Constitute-eating animals would have struggled to stay alive.

Simply birds did, perchance considering they were small even then. They likely ate seeds and insects and took shelter in modest spaces. And being able to fly would take helped them explore far and wide for food and shelter.

That said, if the conditions that came after the dinosaur extinction upshot returned today, no mod animal would evolve back into a dinosaur. This is considering animals today accept a very dissimilar evolutionary past to dinosaurs.

They evolved to have features that help them survive in today'southward globe, rather than a prehistoric one. And these features limit the ways they can evolve in the future.

Which came first, the chicken or the dinosaur?

For an brute to be an actual "dinosaur", information technology must vest to a group of animals known by scientists as Dinosauria. These all descended from a common ancestor shared by Triceratops and modern birds.

Other than birds, Dinosauria doesn't include any living creature. And so for a dinosaur to re-evolve in the future, it would take to come up from a bird.

This animation helps paint a picture of how dinosaurs somewhen evolved to become birds. (American Museum of Natural History/Youtube)

Dinosauria'south extinct members included sauropods, stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, ornithopods, ceratopsians and non-bird theropods. Mod birds evolved from a small grouping of theropods. However, since and then much fourth dimension has passed, this link is limited.

Specifically, birds have a very different drove of "genes". These are the aforementioned built-in "rules" your parents passed down to y'all that decide, for example, what colour your eyes will be.

The more generations that pass betwixt an ancestor and their descendant, the more dissimilar their genes will be.

Fifty-fifty if information technology could happen, what would this take?

Think of how much a bird would need to change to look similar Tyrannosaurus rex or Triceratops. A lot.

Dinosaurs had long tails with basic all along them. Birds' tails are stumpy and have been for more than 100 million years. It's unlikely this would ever be reversed.

A falcon illustration with its skeleton inside visible. — While some types of birds take long tail feathers, such as falcons (above) and pheasants, on the inside their tails are short. Shutterstock

Also, modern birds walk on their back legs simply and (in most cases) have 4 toes and 3 "fingers" in their wings.

Compare that with Triceratops, which walked on all iv limbs, had five fingers on its front feet (the inner three of which were weight-bearing) and four toes on its dorsum feet.

It may not exist incommunicable for birds to gain two more fingers to accept five like Triceratops; some people with a condition chosen "polydactyly" have more than than five fingers, just this is very rare.

At that place aren't actually any situations where an extra finger (or one less) would be necessary for a bird'southward survival. Thus, there'due south little to no take a chance birds volition evolve to change in this manner.

Diagram showing different types of bird feet — Virtually birds accept iv toes and 3 'fingers' in their wings. Shutterstock

Even if birds did somewhen showtime to walk on all four limbs (legs and wings), they wouldn't motility the same way a Triceratops did considering the purpose of a bird's wings is very different to that of a Triceratops's legs.

Dinosaurs are history

We know from fossil discoveries that Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus had scaly pare covering nigh of their bodies. About modernistic birds have scaly anxiety, but none are scaly all over.

Although *Triceratops* had a 'beak' this was very unlike to a bird's beak. Stephen Poropat/American Museum of Natural History

It's hard to imagine what would force any bird to naturally replace its feathers with scales. Birds need feathers to wing, to save energy (past staying warm) and to put on special displays to attract mates.

Triceratops did take a "beak" at the forepart of its mouth, but this evolved completely separately to the beaks of birds and had two extra bones — something no living creature has.

What's more, behind its beak and jaws, Triceratops had rows of teeth. While some birds such as geese take spiky beaks. No bird in the by 66 1000000 years has e'er had teeth.

Considering these huge differences, information technology's really unlikely birds will ever evolve to expect more like their extinct dinosaur relatives. And no extinct dinosaur will always come dorsum to life either — except maybe in movies!