No

by Doug Dobney

Created on: May 31, 2010   Last Updated: June 11, 2010

Birds did not "evolve" from dinosaurs. They developed from pterosaurs.

This is a new idea and is a common-sense alternative to the dinosaur-to-bird idea.

The entire argument in exacting detail can be found here:

http://pterosaurnet. blogspot.com/

Note that this is not an "evolution" vs. "creationism" issue. An "evolutionist" can say that the pterosaur to bird developments are due to neo-Darwinian means (random mutation and natural selection). On the other hand, a "creationist" can say that those developments are the acts of a higher intelligence. This site does not take a position on the "evolution" vs. "creationism" question.

After all is said and done and all the charts and relationships are analyzed here is what the dino to bird theory comes down to:

A HYPOTHETICAL ANIMAL

http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Eumanirapto ra
"The name Paraves was coined by Paul Sereno in 1997.[1] The clade was defined by Sereno in 1998 as a branch-based clade containing all Maniraptora closer to Neornithes (which includes all the birds living in the world today) than to [2]

The ancestral paravian is a hypothetical animal; the first common ancestor of dromaeosaurids, and troodontids which was not also ancestral to oviraptorosaurs. Little can be said with certainty about this animal. The work of Turner et al. (2007) suggested that the ancestral paravian could not glide or fly, and that it was most likely small (around 65 centimeters long and 600–700 grams in mass).[3] But the work of Xu et al. (2003), (2005) and Hu et al (2009) provide examples of basal and early paravians with four wings, including members of the Pedopenna), Dromaeosauridae (Microraptor), and Troodontidae ([6]"

Notice that in almost every respect, dinosaur legs are different than modern bird legs.

http://www.innerbird .com/pelvic_girdle/p elvic_girdle.html
"The change in musculature has been accompanied by equally significant changes to the dinosaur's leg. Dinosaurs have {1}two-unit limbs in the sense that {2} two long bones of roughly equal length form the leg above the foot. The weight of the body is borne by the toes and the {3} independent metatarsals of the foot are {4}relatively s hort.

A similar kind of leg appears in Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis but in modern birds, {1}the femur is shorter than the tibia and {2}fused metatarsals form a new segment that is similar in length to the tibia. {3}Both the tibia and the metatarsals are fused with neighbouring bones from the joints and been renamed tibiotarsus and tarsometatarsus to reflect their new structure. In the bird’s {4}three-unit leg, the femur is held in a roughly horizontal position so that it functions more like a forward extension of the hip bones and contributes little to the length of the bird’s stride. The new arrangement is very useful when the after part of the abdomen is swollen by the presence of a very large egg. (see of eggs and hips)."

Pterodactyloids evolved directly from Rhamphorhynchoidea.
http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Pterosaur "Rhamphorhynchoidea is a paraphyletic group (since the pterodactyloids evolved directly from them and not from a common ancestor)"

Pterodactyloids evolved directly from Rhamphorhynchoidea. How do we know this? How can one make this kind of determination? It isn't hard. You look at the Rhamphorhynchoide, and their characteristics, and then at the pterodactyls, and their characteristics, and you can see that it is the same creature type. The pterodactyl is the later version of the earlier version. This fact is completely recognized and accepted. The Rhamphorhynchoidea are called primitive (basal") pterosaurs and the Pterodactyloids are called advanced ("derived") pterosaurs. Nobody ignores all that and starts looking around for some other ancestor of pterodactyls. That would be absurd.

But oddly enough when it comes to modern birds, the case is conceived precisely the opposite. Even though modern birds are exceptionally similar to pterodactyls, everybody ignores that fact and they begin to look around for some other ancestry. And they come up with dinosaurs that are quite UNLIKE modern birds. It is odd - very odd. It is not necessary to look somewhere else. Just use the same reasoning as was correctly used in determining that pterodactyloids evolved directly from Rhamphorhynchoidea.

There are dozens of similarities between birds and pterosaurs:

Learn more about this author, Doug Dobney.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.