• Question: If birds are flying dinosaurs, how did they shrink?

    Asked by 12smithj to PB, Lyn on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Did they shrink? Or do we just like digging up the big ones?

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Things don’t really ‘shrink’ or ‘grow’ when they evolve 😉 When the dinosaurs went extinct (and we’re still not completely sure why), the ancestors of birds survived better than the others, and they just happened to be small ones. Not all dinosaurs were huge – we know there were really small ones too (the size of a rat) but, like Peter said, big bones are easier to find!

      This is slightly off topic, but I think this comic is really cool! https://xkcd.com/1211/

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