Dinosaurs shrank continually into birds
Steady miniaturization and rapidly changing skeletons transformed massive animals
By Meghan Rosen
Dinosaurs were the original incredible shrinking animals.
More than 50 million years of steady miniaturization and rapidly changing bodies transformed the massive animals into relatively tiny ones: birds.
A new analysis of bones, feathers and teeth from 120 dinosaur species validates what some scientists had suspected: Modern birds’ ancient ancestors evolved quickly and shrank continually, researchers report in the Aug. 1 Science.
“Other studies have been sniffing around this area,” says paleontologist Roger Benson of the University of Oxford, “but the scale of this study is unprecedented. They looked across the whole skeleton.”