How dinosaur came before the chicken and egg
IT is a question that has foxed some of the world’s greatest thinkers since time immemorial.
But now, scientists have finally come up with the answer to that most knotty of questions – which came first, the chicken or the egg?
And as it turns out, the correct answer is neither – because technically, the dinosaur was the forerunner of both.
A dinosaur family tree with Tyrannosaurus Rex at the top has given Scots scientists a new insight in to the evolution of birds.
A study led by Edinburgh University used the most comprehensive family tree of meat-eating dinosaurs ever created to examine how birds evolved from dinosaurs.
It s hows t hat t he f amiliar anatomical features of birds such as feathers, wings and wishbones all first evolved piecemeal in their dinosaur ancestors.
However, once a fully functioning bird body shape was complete, an ‘evolutionary explosion’ caused a rapid increase in the rate at which birds evolved.
This led eventually to the thousands of avian species that we know today – and answered the original question.
Dr Steve Brusatte, of Edinburgh University’s School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said: ‘Chickens, like all birds, evolved from the dinosaurs, and dinosaurs laid eggs, so when you ask what came first, the chicken or the egg? You can say the egg came first.
‘But the real answer is none of the above – the dinosaur came first. The first truly recognisable birds, with wings that could fly, came about 150 million years ago.’
‘There was no moment in time when a dinosaur became a bird, and there is no single missing link between them.
‘Instead, this group of dinosaurs over tens of millions of years became ever more birdlike. Once that bird body plan came together fully, it unlocked great evolutionary potential that allowed birds to evolve at a super-charged rate.
‘T Rex and other meat eating dinosaurs are fairly close relatives of birds. The study tells us definitely, definitively that birds are living dinosaurs.’