instead descended from bipedaled, meat-eating dinosaurs known as theropods,
from Greek meaning “fierce foot.”
Indeed, birds are the only living relatives of dinosaurs. Except for having
a long tail, the skeletons of many small dinosaur species closely resembled
those of birds, suggesting a direct descent from dinosaurs. Microraptor is by far
the smallest adult dinosaur yet discovered and was about the size of a crow.
The creature had feathers on its body. It also had skeletal features that linked
it with birds, including birdlike clawed feet that might have been used for
perching on branches. The animal is considered the closest dinosaurian rela-
tiv e of birds and was probably a nimble climber of trees. Its ancestors might
have liv ed in trees long enough to develop traits associated with an arboreal
lifestyle.Therefore, flying would have been a simple matter of launching from
the treetop back to the ground.
Oviraptors (Fig. 145) are dinosaurs that brooded their eggs in a communal
nest. They are closely related to birds, which provide the strongest evidence of
parental attention, suggesting birds inherited this behavior from dinosaurs. Ovi-
raptors and birds probably evolved from a common ancestor that also exhibited
brooding behavior.The animal apparently lived prior to the earliest birds, which
evolved alongside the dinosaurs, who mysteriously died out while birds live on.Figure 145An oviraptor
brooding a clutch of eggs.
Historical Geology