Fossil Finds
What was the first fossil that showed birds came from dinosaurs?
Archaeopteryx
What do birds and dinosaurs have in common with their feet?
Three toes
How many millions of years ago did modern birds first appear?
About 67 million years ago
What part of the chest holds strong muscles to help birds fly?
The breastbone or keel
What science method helps show how birds are related to dinosaurs?
Cladistics
Birds evolved from which kind of meat-eating dinosaurs?
Theropods
What is the name of the "wishbone" that both birds and some dinosaurs have?
Furcula
What big event wiped out most dinosaurs and allowed birds to grow in number?
The asteroid or K-Pg extinction
What did bird arms evolve to do over time?
Fly or flap for lift
Why didn’t people believe birds came from dinosaurs at first?
They thought dinosaurs were slow and cold
What time period did birds start evolving in?
The Jurassic Periods
What did early birds lose that dinosaurs still had on their tails?
A long bony tail
Which group of birds includes the most kinds of birds today.
Neoaves
What is special about bird bones that help them fly?
They are light and full of air
What fossil showed a dinosaur sitting on a nest like a bird?
An oviraptor fossil
What covered the bodies of early dinosaurs like Sinosauropteryx?
Simple Feathers
What did Archaeopteryx have that modern birds do not?
Teeth and Claws
What is one way scientists figure out how old birds are if there are no fossils?
By using DNA or family trees
What happened to many of the bird’s bones over time?
They fused together
What dinosaur helped scientists in the 1960s see birds came from dinosaurs?
Deinonychus
What tiny bumps on Velociraptor bones showed it had feathers?
Quill Knobs
What was one early job feathers had before flying?
Keeping the birds warm and covering their eggs
What do scientists call an animal’s family tree?
Phylogeny
What helped Archaeopteryx fly like modern birds?
Strong wing feathers
What dinosaur had wings like a bat and showed a new way to glide?
Yi qi