Re: dinos and birds

[Dora Smith <villandra@austin.rr.com>]

Actually birds belong to a large family of warm-blooded reptiles, and a
subgroup of those that had feathers.   Not merely descendants of.
Reptiles must be among the most variant organisms that ever lived.

I do wonder whether it is time to subdivide them.   Reptiles differ almost
as much from each other as oxygen-breathing organisms from other primitive
life.

I will tell you, though, that my budgies know they are reptiles.   They
behave more like lizards or those dinosaurs that used to charge at each
other than I'd always thought birds act.

But did that include pterosaurs?

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra@austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mickey Mortimer" <Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 5:55 PM
Subject: Re: dinos and birds


> pheret wrote-
>
>
>
> Birds are reptiles due to phylogenetic taxonomy (the recent practice of
> defining the content of groups of organisms based on their relationships
to
> each other).  Reptilia is defined (roughly) as the most recent common
> ancestor of modern lizards, snakes, turtles, crocodilians, the tuatara and
> all its descendants.  Birds happen to be some of those descendants, so
they
> are reptiles.  It's not just a matter of personal preference anymore.
>
.edu/eoraptor/Home.html