The Warblers by Birds Canada

Dino Watching: Are Birds Dinosaurs?

February 23, 2022 Andres Jiménez and Andrea Gress for Birds Canada Season 2 Episode 2
The Warblers by Birds Canada
Dino Watching: Are Birds Dinosaurs?
Show Notes Transcript

Our producer, Jody Allair, never stopped loving dinosaurs. He is always telling us about how birds are actually just dinosaurs. Is he right?

In this episode, we hear from Dr. François Therrien at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. We learn about the evolution of birds, and their similarities with theropod dinosaurs. This episode goes out to everyone who never stopped loving dinosaurs!

By studying the palaeoecology of extinct animals, François Therrien aims to determine how animals behaved when they were alive, and what the world they lived in looked like. For the palaeoecology of extinct animals, François uses two different approaches. The shapes of animals’ bones help him determine the behaviours of extinct animals (e.g., how they hunted, walked, laid their eggs). He also studies the features and chemical composition of ancient soils (called paleosols) to reconstruct the environments and climatic conditions the animals lived in.

Jody Allair is an avid birder and naturalist who enjoys sharing his enthusiasm for the natural world. He is the Director of Community Engagement at Birds Canada and has written numerous articles on birds, birding and connecting with nature. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram at @JodyAllair.

Out of Christmas coffee? Want to help create more positive news stories for birds? grab some certified bird-friendly coffee for The Warblers now => at
Birds and Beans.

Please remember we would love to hear from you, let us know what you think about the podcast here or which topics you will love -> podcast@birdscanada.org

Andrea Gress studied Renewable Resource Management at the University of Saskatchewan. She pivoted towards birds, after an internship in South Africa. Upon returning, she worked with Piping Plovers in Saskatchewan and now coordinates the Ontario Piping Plover Conservation Program for Birds Canada. Follow her work at @ontarioplovers

Andrés Jiménez is a Costa Rican wildlife biologist with a keen interest in snakes, frogs, birds and how human relationships are interconnected with the living world. He studied Tropical Biology in Costa Rica and has a Masters in Environmental Problem Solving from York University. He is Birds Canada's Urban Program Manager and you can follow him at @andresjimo 

Andrea Gress:

You're listening to the Warblers of birds Canada Podcast. I'm Andrea Gress

Andres Jimenez Monge:

and I am Andr130s Jimenez.

Andrea Gress:

Join us as we travel uncommon flight paths with our guests gaining insights and inspiration from the world of birds and bird conservation in Canada. On this week's episode of the Warblers, we are learning all about dinosaurs and their connection to birds are birds dinosaurs. When did feathers emerge? Our producer Jody Allaire, is going to be chatting with Francois Theron from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller to get all of the juicy details

Andres Jimenez Monge:

welcome, Jody. Hey, Andrea.

Jody Allair:

Hey, Andres. Great to be here with you guys.

Andrea Gress:

Yeah, it's really exciting to have you and I'm excited about this episode, because there's some good stuff coming. You were the one who really wanted to do an episode about dinosaurs and birds. Could you tell us about like what you want to get out of this one?

Jody Allair:

Yeah, you know, this is a topic I've always loved for years and years and years. I think it's just so fascinating that you know, the species that we all work on, like birds, you know, I have this incredible connection to dinosaurs. And I love dinosaurs as a kid. And learning that, you know, birds are really in many ways, just the living descendants of dinosaurs is. I don't know, I just can't get enough of this story. So it's pretty exciting to be able to talk to someone who knows a lot about the subject.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

You mean, your inner Dino loving kid who never died? Can't get enough of this topic? Yeah,

Jody Allair:

essentially. Yeah, I sort of, I don't know, I sort of still feel like I'm a big kid. But especially when we get to talk about dinosaurs. There's just something about dinosaurs eh? it's just a subject that I think is so fascinating learning so much more about our distant natural history, right? I just, I just love it and, and I love the modern connection of it. And, and it's just such a great example of how you know, evolution and natural selection work, right? It's so yeah, no, it's just I love this topic. And I'm really glad you guys we're all for having an episode about it. Yeah. So Yeah. So I'll give a quick little introduction to

Andrea Gress:

for this episode, you're gonna chat with Francois Therrai n at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. And the two of you essentially just geek out about dinosaurs and I love it. Dr. Francoise terian. So I've known Francoise for several years. He's the curator of dinosaur paleoecology at the Royal Tirol Museum of paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta. And Francoise studies a whole bunch of really interesting aspects of, of dinosaurs, but he really is interested in looking at how animals behaved when they were alive. So she prehistoric animals and what the world they lived in would have looked like these tons of research on the feeding behavior of carnivorous dinosaurs, the environment and climate in which extinct animals lived. There's he's got no shortage of research highlights, but the one I think is really pertinent to this episode is that he was part of a team that discovered the very first feathered dinosaurs from North America. So yeah, he's a great, great person to talk to you about this topic.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

All right, let's listen to Jody Allair interview with Dr. Francois Therrain. Here we go.

Jody Allair:

Hey, welcome to the world wars podcast, Francoise.

Francois Therrain:

Thanks for having me.

Jody Allair:

So look, let's get started by Why don't you tell us about some of the research? You do?

Francois Therrain:

Yeah, well, my specialty is what we call patio ecology. So it's the city of trying to reconstruct the behavior and the lifestyle of extinct animals. My particular interest is dinosaurs. But I'm interested not only as looking at their bones know which species is related to which one and is that a new species or not, I'm more interested to reconstruct how these animals were alive. So what were the lives doing as living creatures 75 million years ago, for example. So I'm interested in by studying their bones, their anatomy, trying to reconstruct their lifestyle, their feeding behavior for predators, their bite for how to capture their prey. But I'm also interested in trying to reconstruct the world in which these these animals live. So by looking at the rocks, where we find these fossils, we can actually learn a lot about the habitats and the climate, the temperature, the amount of rainfall, where they living in the wetlands, where they dry, living in deserts. So that type of things trying to flesh out these animals beyond the bones and trying to reconstruct the world in which they lived and what were these animals doing at the time when they were alive?

Jody Allair:

Oh, that's, that's so amazing. I have just countless other questions. I would love to talk to you about this line of work and research because it's really just incredible. But our focus is to talk about the bird dinosaur connection. I'm hoping you can help explain to us the relationship you know, between birds and dinosaurs and and how birds really evolved. One of the groups of dinosaurs that you love to work on are theropod dinosaurs that play a prominent role in the evolution of birds. Could you maybe explain to us what exactly a theropod dinosaur is?

Francois Therrain:

theropods are a group of dinosaurs that include all the meat eating dinosaurs and their close relatives. So that group includes famous characters like T Rex Allosaurus Spinosaurus, and even Velociraptor of Jurassic Park fame. So, so theropods are animals that walked on two legs, and most of them had sharp teeth and sharp claws to capture prey because those mediating dinosaurs those theropods there were almost all of them were predators. However, there are some groups of theropods that have lost their teeth and have evolved beaks instead. So we think that those theropods may have been instead herbivorous or omnivorous. So this means either they ate plants, or they ate plants mixed in with flesh and other things. So that's the case of some groups of theropods that we call the ortho moments or the ostrich mimic dinosaurs, and more cassowary like dinosaurs called the Oviraptor heads. Now these animals we call them as ostrich like or cassowary, like but but they're not related to those modern birds. They're, that's what we call a case of parallel evolution that similar features evolved independently in groups that are distantly related. Because in nature, there's usually very few ways to do something, right. There's usually one way to do something right. And different animals will evolve that same shape over and over again, because it works so well. So that's the case of the the ostrich mimic dinosaurs of the castle area like dinosaurs, they probably did something very similar to what modern paleo cognates do, but they're not related to modern birds. So it's a case of basically evolving very superficial similarities, but those animals are not closely related.

Jody Allair:

Okay, so why don't we just jump into like the million dollar question, When exactly did birds evolve in? And how did that come about?

Francois Therrain:

Well, based on what we know from the fossil record, looks like the first birds evolved about 150 million years ago during a time period called the Late Jurassic. So the first birds had four wings that may come as a surprise to many listeners. But the very first birds had four wings, they had obviously wings on their four limbs, but they also had long feathers on their legs that formed leg the wings. So it's believed that those first wings would have the hell the first birds, the primitive birds to generate and enough lift, so they could stay aloft and actually start flying. But with time and probably as birds start evolving new adaptations better at that patients to flap their their, their arm wings. That's when the link the leg wings start getting smaller, the feathers got shorter, and eventually, they fully disappeared by about 125 million years ago, in a time period we called the Early Cretaceous, all birds of that time only had two wings. So it's similar to the evolution of planes. We started with biplanes that had basically the equivalent of four wings. But as the design improved, and the wings were capable of generating more left planes certain being built with only two wings, because there was enough lift generated with two wings. So it looks like birds may have gone through a similar stage in their early evolution.

Jody Allair:

Did feathers evolve then in theropod dinosaurs before what we think of as a traditional bird. And when did that turn into actual flight?

Francois Therrain:

For the longest time, the presence of feathers was thought to be the key feature that differentiated birds from dinosaurs, birds had feathers, and dinosaurs had scales because they're reptiles, so they can't have feathers. But all that changed in 1996. With the discovery of the first fossils of small dinosaur small mediating dinosaurs that actually weren't fully covered in feathers, and we're talking about modern looking feathers with a central rake is and even vein so from those discoveries, it became clear that modern feathers had first evolved in dinosaurs, and birds must have inherited those features from their dinosaur in ancestor. So since then, I'd say hundreds, possibly 1000s of fossils of feathered dinosaurs have been discovered, mostly in a little area of China called the province of knowning. But there's also a spotty occurrences of feathered dinosaurs all around the world. And based on those fossils, we see that first of lots of meat eating dinosaurs were covered in feathers, but also we see the history of evil missionary history of feathers we see that in more primitive theropods, those that are more distantly related to birds. feathers were very, very simple. And by that we mean that they're some people call them dinosaur fuzz because it looks like when you look at the fossil, it looks like the fossils are surrounded by a fuzz but the feathers if you look at them under a microscope, you can see they're very simple hair like features. In fact, they're very, very similar to down feathers very simple on branch feather that looked like a little filament like a little hair. And it's believed that those first feathers were probably used for for insulation to keep the animal warm. And then as we look at fossils of theropods, we can see that as the theropods become more evolved, they became more advanced closer and closer to birds. That's when we see that feathers started becoming more and more complex. They started as low filaments that looked like down feathers. And then they evolved more complex fade features. They evolved array kiss, they evolve barbules they evolve, they'll barbules to form veins on modern feathers. And then eventually, full blown modern feathers were present in theropods that are very closely related to birds, but are not clearly not birds. So it's telling us that yet birds feathers are extremely widespread in the in the evolution of theropods and some paleontologists even think that very primitive feathers like the doll like feathers may even have been present in the ancestor of all dinosaurs. So it's showing that actually, feathers are probably not clearly not the unique feature of birds. It's actually first they actually first evolved among dinosaurs, and only later with time, the birds inherit those feathers from their dinosaur ancestors. And as of today, we know the presence of feathers based on fossils we know that actually of at least 60 different species of meat eating dinosaurs that possess feathers, so we see that it's not just a fluke, and it's not just a few theropods that had feathers it looks like most of them if not all of them actually had feathers.

Jody Allair:

Oh, this is this is incredible. So what we're seeing I guess if I can interpret what you're saying is that you know the the growth between like having hair like hollow Barb's or down plumes to all the way to asymmetrical flight feather design. All of that really happened within dinosaurs before birds were actually birds.

Francois Therrain:

That's absolutely right. Yeah, we see the clear evolution that feathers start very simple, and then evolved to become, as you said, as symmetrical flight feathers. The question is, what were those feathers used for? And what is the evolution of flight? How did animals that are basically ground dwelling animals start flying? And there's a lot of debate about how flight began? There's three main theories to explain that these are the attempt to answer how flight first began. One scenario is what we call the bottom down scenario where it's hypothesized that it's probably small tree dwelling theropods that started using their their feathers first for parachuting down trees, then, through time and with evolution started gliding from tree to tree, and eventually learned to flap their wings and could actually start flying. There's another scenario that's called the bottom up scenario that postulates that flight first of all, among ground dwelling theropods that had to jump maybe to capture their prey or to run away for predators or something. And then they learned that by flapping their wings, they could actually jump a little bit higher. And then with time and evolution again, basically, that flapping motion allowed the other theropod to jump higher and higher, longer distances and eventually could that translated into powered flight. And then there's a third scenario, that's a slight modification on the Senate a second scenario on the bottom up scenario, and that's been observed by studying modern birds for example, species of mostly ground dwelling birds like Chuck are partridges, Turkey, even pigeons, and birds that are capable of flying but actually spend a lot of time on the ground and it was discovered, especially in very young birds, that before they can, they are very good at flying. They actually flap their wings but it's not to generate left to take off, but it's rather to push themselves down against the ground so they gain better traction when they try to run away from a predator. And that even allows them to climb up trunks that are oriented 90 degrees from horizontal, they just flap their wings that increase tractions on the ground. And that allows those birds to actually climb up on a vertical obstacle to run away from predators. So those scientists have proposed that maybe that's how flight began. Now those scenarios explained how flight could have began, but it doesn't answer the question of why did wings evolve in the first place? And the answer to why did wings first of all comes from the study of dinosaurs? About 10 years ago, I was involved in a study that described the first feathered dinosaurs from North America. And those were discovered from here in Alberta. And we found that those were species of ostrich mimic dinosaurs. So fairly large animal that are as large if not larger than modern day ostriches, so they're definitely too big to fly. But we see that the adult ostrich running dinosaurs had wings, whereas the young ones that were at least a year old, still did not have wings. So from that, we infer that the wings probably developed with sexual maturity. So when the animal went through a phase of puberty, if you want to call it in human terms, when they reach sexual maturity, they start growing those wings on those on their four limbs. And the wings were then probably used for courtship and display try to attract a mate maybe for brooding for trying to scare away a predator anything that's related to display and courtship. So with propose them that probably that's why wings, first of all, they evolved for displaying courtship. And it's only later on in evolutionary time, that those wings were used for other purposes, were co opted for other purposes. And eventually, one of those purposes was flight. So wings, first of all, just to show off to try to impress a mate. But later in time, theropods, realized that a with those big feathers on my arms, I can do something else, and that actually can generate lift. So we're probably back down to basically either the the bottom up, or the modified bottom up scenario where wings could have allowed these animals to generate lift and eventually take flight.

Jody Allair:

It really seems like feathers singularly play a very key role in a whole bunch of evolutionary adaptations with dinosaurs, like from warmth to display and then even almost inadvertently, to to flight. That's really interesting that that structure, you know, is so dynamic.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

We'll be right back. How do you like your coffee Andrew cream? Sure.

Andrea Gress:

I like mine, bird friendly, certified,

Andres Jimenez Monge:

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Andrea Gress:

That's good for migratory birds.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

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Andrea Gress:

ah, not to mention delicious,

Andres Jimenez Monge:

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Andrea Gress:

great. Andreas How about another cup? Let's do it.

Jody Allair:

We're talking a lot about feathers because you know that's really is one of the main connectors right with birds and theropod dinosaurs. But I did want to ask you Are there some other shared characteristics that link theropod dinosaurs and in modern birds in addition to feathers,

Francois Therrain:

there's in many anatomical features but there's also behaviors that that are shared between the two. For example, if you look at the anatomy of birds, we see that for example, the hollow bones the three toed feet, even the the air sacs in the respiratory system, all those features that we see in birds are also found in meat eating dinosaurs, and we also sue even brooding behavior where the parent sits on the clutch and warms up the nest for to to incubate the eggs. Those behaviors also first evolved among meat eating dinosaurs because we find fossils of meat eating dinosaurs that have been preserved had been buried while they were sitting on their clutch trying to keep the eggs warm. So so we see that there's a lot of similarities between birds and dinosaurs and the only way We can explain just the sheer amount of similarities that we see between the two is to basically say that yeah, birds are not only did not only evolve for dinosaurs from dinosaurs, but birds are dinosaurs the same way that we can say humans are mammals. So that's a really key feature of paleontology that the key discovery of paleontology I should say that we've learned over the past that say, 30 to 50 years, that actually birds are dinosaurs, and they're just a highly specialized type of dinosaurs that have learned to fly and that are still alive today.

Jody Allair:

I love dinosaurs as a kid in it, you know, quickly switch to birds, but I'm really hearing that I actually didn't make the switch at all. It's, it's been I've been ipmn Dinosaur my entire life. So that's, that's kind of cool, Fred. So I want to ask you about Archaeopteryx. Some of our listeners are probably familiar with 150 million year old fossil of Archaeopteryx. It's in almost any book about dinosaurs. And it's that classic image of a small looking dinosaur with a bent neck and very clear, you know, feathers coming off the limbs and tail. And I wanted to ask you about Archaeopteryx specifically is, is that at $150 million that we placed it in the Jurassic period? Is that the oldest known bird, or is it considered a species that is transitional between birds and theropod dinosaurs? Or maybe it's too impossible, because it's been such a gradual change. So how do you place Archaeopteryx,

Francois Therrain:

as you mentioned yet, Archaeopteryx is really x put aside your T Rex and triceratops, I think Archaeopteryx is probably the most famous fossil ever discovered, as you can see, it's a gorgeous specimen, or at least the Berlin specimen that we see the Natural History in Berlin, where as you said, it's a bent neck animal with all the wing feathers splayed out. So that's probably one of the most beautiful dinosaur fossil ever discovered. I call it dinosaur because birds are dinosaurs. I

Jody Allair:

fully agree with that Francoise. Yeah.

Francois Therrain:

Yeah, I'd say that. Nowadays generally, Archaeopteryx is generally considered the earliest known bird. If you look at the fall, so we can see that Archaeopteryx was fully covered with feathers that are in all ways identical to modern feathers. We have the symmetrical flight feathers, we have symmetrical feathers covering the body, we have the flight feathers on the on the wings. So from the outside, if we were to look at the animal as it was alive, would clearly have looked like a bird. But if you look at the details, the the skeletal anatomy, the skeleton of the animal, you can see that it's also very similar to small meeting dinosaurs. It still had teeth, it had a very long bony tail. It had a hand with three fingers with claws. So Archaeopteryx represents the perfect transitional animal where one could say gay, we're dealing with a primitive bird, but it's clearly evolved from a theropod Archaeopteryx sits up the base of a crib that we called aviz, which means in Latin birds, because that's where it was classified when it was first discovered in the 1850s. However, I'd say in the last 15 years or so, there's been lots of new feathered dinosaurs that have been discovered that the actually when you analyze them, you realize that they are more primitive than Archaeopteryx, but they're still more closely related to birds than they are to any other type of meat eating dinosaurs like Velociraptor, for example. So someday intelligence have suggested that, that maybe we should broaden what our definition of a bird is, in order to include these slightly more primitive theropods covered with feathers. They have wings, they have a symmetrical flight feathers, they have four they have wings on their four limbs and unveil legs. So some people say that we should expand our definition of birds to include those animals and call them fvl. And to this day, I think most paleontologists still consider Archaeopteryx as being the first bird that we have to put the dots somewhere, as you mentioned, so many fossils of transitional animals have shown that actually going from a theropod to a bird is a very gradual process. It wasn't a sudden jump that you say Okay, in this animal this is where we see the big difference. This is a theropod This is clearly a bird, most people still consider Archaeopteryx as being the earliest known bird,

Jody Allair:

but one of the topics that I think is particularly interesting we're looking at the evolution of birds, especially within the Cretaceous period is that they survived the the KT extinction, the big dinosaur extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, and whereas all other sort of larger dinosaurs did not make it through How did birth words make it through that when other even very similar dinosaurs did not.

Francois Therrain:

That's a very interesting question. If we were to jump in a time machine and go back 67 million years ago to the very end of the age of the dinosaurs, with C and we look up in the sky with see there would have been a lot of different birds species flying out, and they would have been extremely diverse. Of course, birds, were not the only animals that could fly at the time. There were also the pterosaurs of flying reptiles, lots of people often call flying dinosaurs, but they're not dinosaurs. They're clearly closely related to dinosaurs, but they're a different type of reptiles. So that includes animals such as Quixel, quad, Lois, Turan, and on pterodactyls, and things like that. So those would have been truly the master of the skies, but that the smaller body size, there would have been a lot of birds flying up in the sky and see, the birds would have been extremely diverse with types of birds that are no longer alive today, you would have seen birds with teeth, birds with beaks, birds that could swim like lumens, but I've totally lost their wings. And then you'd see some birds that were if you look at them really quickly, you'd say it's a modern bird, but they're not quite there yet. But then you'd find just a minority of species, just very few of them, that would actually qualify as being reprinted a true representatives of the modern bird lineages. For example, we have evidence that the ancestors of Petit cognates or Tina mus, and ostriches, the ancestors of ducks and files, and the ancestors of all other modern birds that we call Neo ABS would have been there, but they would have been extremely rare because the skies were dominated by other groups of birds, then if we fast forward to about 66 million years ago, that's when we have a large mass extinction, the Cretaceous Paleogene mass extinction that we think is related to a combination of climate change, but also an probably predominantly big meteorite impact that occurred somewhere in there that we call the Chicxulub meteorite that collided with the earth somewhere in the Yucatan Peninsula in modern day Mexico. And because of that impact, there were tremendous and catastrophic environmental disturbances that lead to the extinction of on one hand, all non bird dinosaurs, but also of lots of other types of animals, both on land and in the oceans. And believe it or not, birds were also among the casualties, it's estimated that about 90% of bird species went extinct. At the Cretaceous Paleogene mass extinction, we have entire lineages of birds that were totally wiped out. And then we just had a few species that survived. So the survivors are usually we're usually small species, smaller animals. There were species that also did not live in trees, they were lived either on land or possibly by the water. And they also had beaks instead of teeth. So all the species with teeth went extinct. So why were those characteristics key for, for the those birds to survive, whereas all other birds went extinct? Well, that's probably due to the nature of the devastation after the impact that basically, after the meteorite impact, there was a big fire blast that wrong went around the world, or at least over the Americas, and totally burned down all the forests. And then the meteorites also kind of pulled it up in the atmosphere, a lot of dust that formed a shroud around the Earth, blocking the sun rays for at least 10 years. So that greatly reduced the amount of photosynthesis that could happen. So all the trees died, you only had the small ferns and small plants that could grow. So that's why all the tree dwelling birds went extinct. The only birds the only species of birds that could survive, were those that could live on the ground or close to waterways or lakes and find food there. And also, because there weren't that many trees anymore, there were just more plants. Well, species that had beaks and could feed on seeds, or other hard food elements. Those are the species that survived. And then there was also a selection for smaller species, because the bigger you are, the more food you need. So the smaller you are, the less food you need. And basically entirely in the hard times. Yeah, that was probably advantageous for for survivors. And we see the same thing among other land dwelling animals across the Cretaceous Paleogene mass extinction, we can see that if you were a small animal, meaning that you weighed less than 44 pounds, and you were a generalist, meaning you you weren't But finicky eater, you could eat either a mixture of everything, you weren't a strict plan eater or strict meat eater, then odds are that you would survive. But if you were bigger than 44 pounds, and you had a very strict diet, then odds were that you would go extinct. So we see a parallel with birds. Whereas if you're a smaller mediating animal, and you could feed on hard objects, that it would be hard for species without beaks to eat, then that's probably why that these species survive. And then from those survivors evolved all of the modern burning bridges that we see today. So that's what we call an explosive radiation that there's very few survivors. But because the ecosystem is empty, all the ecological niches that were occupied by other animals before the KPg, mass extinction, were now vacant, they were now open. So the survivors were able to just diversify and radiate into all those ecological niches and evolve into all the modern birds that we have today.

Jody Allair:

You often hear people talking about, you know, sharks, you know, sharks are, like the perfect design. So it's been around for hundreds of millions of years, virtually unchanged. And crocodilians, you know, it sort of, they nailed it early on, and they sort of kept there. They're survivors, they can survive those type of big extinction events. It sounds to me like we need to be talking about birds. In the same realm, it seems like birds and feathers, really made them adoptable. And I think they definitely deserve our respect. It's really impressive. What they've they've had to go through and how they evolved is really just an incredible story. And I hope one of the takeaways is for people listening to you understanding that, you know, birds are absolutely remarkable. They deserve more attention from us, and especially a lot more in the conservation realm. I do want to ask you one last question. So there's so much to this story of the bird dinosaur connection and how birds evolved? What is the significance for you as a paleontologist?

Francois Therrain:

Well as the pay intelligence, I think it shows us that the dinosaurs are not extinct. They're still alive today. In fact, dinosaurs are the most diverse group of vertebrates alive on on Earth nowadays, well, if you exclude fish that live in the ocean, but if you mean, like living on land, or in the air, birds are the most diverse groups of vertebrates today, there's what over 10,000 species of birds alive today, versus only 6000 species of mammals. So clearly, we're still living in a world of dinosaurs. It's just up now, the dinosaurs are really specialized. They're just basically those beautiful flying animals. And then yeah, so as a paleontologist, I think it gives you a better appreciation for for dinosaurs, because you can see we still have relatives today and knowing that from animals, small mediating dinosaurs, we had the evolution of one of the most important groups of vertebrates, we have today. So so it's really interesting to to know, why is a bird a bird? Or why are our birds the way they are? And that's because they inherited so not to say that everything that's a bird came from theropods. First, obviously, modern birds evolved their own thing, but there's many characteristics that birds just inherited from their dinosaur ancestor. And at the same time, studying modern birds can give us information about the biology and the lifestyle of extinct dinosaurs. For example, it's only recently that we discovered that lots of meat eating dinosaurs had air sacs and probably had a respiratory system or breathing system, very similar to those various because we see lots of air sacs if you look at the skeletons of birds, you can see that their lungs have all those pouches going into their bones that allows them to breathe in a very efficient way, whether they inhale or exhale. Birds always have fresh oxygen going through their lungs, that's quite superior to the breathing style of mammals like us, when you inhale air, you have fresh oxygen, but when you exhale, you just spew out air that's impoverished in oxygen, but birds, whether they inhale, exhale, they always have fresh oxygen going through through their lungs. So what we discovered that the same breathing system was also present in theropods and meat eating dinosaurs. So that allows us to see by your setting at birds, we can actually infer the biology and the lifestyle of extinct dinosaurs. Knowing more about the information, the lifestyle of modern birds, actually allows us to reconstruct the lifestyle of extinct dinosaurs. So I think that's the big big point for paleontologists their their interest in the in modern birds.

Jody Allair:

I love that I love that connection. I think that's such a great way to end this is the connection between, you know, looking at the behavior of modern birds to help piece together mysteries from the past with dinosaurs, and vice versa looking at the the origin of some of these theropod dinosaurs to understand modern birds better. I also love the idea of when you're looking outside at the birds in your yard or in your local park. You're basically out dinosaur watching. I think 10 year old me is high fiving myself at the moment here. I think that's a pretty amazing realization to come to that. And so really, we should probably be changing the name of birds Canada to avian theropod dinosaurs Canada. I don't know, I'm not sure if that's gonna quite work. But Francoise, thank you so much for spending time with us today and for telling us all about your work in this amazing connection between birds and dinosaurs.

Francois Therrain:

It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

We'll be right back.

Jody Allair:

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Andres Jimenez Monge:

Wow, that was a fantastic interview. God that was so interesting. And I think it is a good time to go into our you know, highlights and bombshells and things that we got from that interview. I was particularly shocked to find out first of all, the answer to the main question we've all had that birds are in the dinosaur and that we never stopped loving dinosaurs. And then we just become we became dyno watchers instead of birdwatchers. And so that was fantastic. But then to find out that bird used to have four wings, that was super super cool. And that the way they were using the wings first one of the theories was to get more thrust when they ran. That was That was incredible.

Andrea Gress:

Yeah, I love Dr. Therrain comparison to airplanes how airplanes evolved?

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Oh, that was awesome. Yeah, made me thought of dragonflies as well. And then bees that have for four sets of wings. And then then flies they only have two pairs. So everyone parents, so that was incredible.

Jody Allair:

Yeah, I love I love that you guys are pumped about the subject matter. Now. It is so fascinating, isn't it? There's so many really great things that Francois had to say. And I really like that, you know, when we think of feathers, we think of birds, right? Birds, like totally linked to feathers. And I really love the conversation that you know, feathers evolved before birds, you know, before what we think of as modern birds existed and that, you know, feathers had a different purpose at first before flight, you know, for for thermal regulation and for display and, and feathers, you know, did all sorts of things. They're sort of like the, you know, the Leatherman or Swiss Army knife of of external adaptations, right? Like it's certainly knife for sure. Yeah, it's I think that's just I think that's just a really cool, cool thing that that feathers have been around for so long.

Andrea Gress:

And that not just feathers, but dinosaurs had so many other similarities with modern day birds. That was really fascinating to me. Yeah.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Judy, which what the main takeaways when it comes to which are the similarities between dinos and birds? What are the things that we learn that birds have in common with dinosaurs?

Jody Allair:

Yeah, well, I think there's I think there's several things right like I think like obviously feathers is the one adaptations to form a beak, you know, are another that that predate modern birds, the whole you know, skeletal structure being bipedal. Having a wishbone there's all you know, air sacs you know, there's all sorts of things and the the list of things that are similar between you know, birds and dinosaurs, it's so tight that is actually and I think we talked about this right it's it's almost really difficult to pinpoint. Like when where they are different. Yeah, where they are different. When is the dinosaur when does the theropod dinosaur specifically to those bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs become birds because it's been such a gradual change over time? I think we don't see birds without their feathers. Too often. If you look at like a golden eagle or something, you know, the skeleton of it, you know, or if you if you see birds, you don't realize their legs, like how big their legs are, and they actually do look like a tiny you know, Velociraptor with a beak without teeth. I think the feathers sort of mask the dinosaur Enos of birds

Andres Jimenez Monge:

to Dinosaur nests, that's wicked. What is it that you want to accomplish from exploring this link between birds and dinosaurs?

Jody Allair:

You know, for me, you know, as someone who's you know, a biologist, and who's, you know, always been interested in dinosaurs as well. I love looking at the origins and the evolutionary history of anything, right? I think that that story of how things change and evolve over time is always a fascinating story. And we learn a lot birds in a very real sense, that actually, you know, can be considered avian, theropod dinosaurs, they have changed, but they really in a broader evolutionary look are still kind of dinosaurs. And I love that it's such a game changer, you know, in terms of by perspective on when I look at a bird, and what I think now is, is I think of something that actually, you know, evolved much longer ago than than we than we originally imagined. What about you, Andrew?

Andrea Gress:

Oh, man, I gotta be honest, I never knew that much about the birds and the dinosaurs prior to this conversation. And I just I really enjoyed learning about it. I think it speaks to just how much we're constantly learning the fact that we didn't definitively prove the feather connection until 1996. Like, that's our lifetimes, guys. That's, you know, that's unreal. Yeah.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

I was a teenager by then. Um, the one thing that really struck me, I used to work with sea turtles. And I've worked with snakes for a long time. And the biggest argument we used to use when it came to sea turtle conservation was that leatherbacks were older than dinosaurs that they had barely changed since the time of dinosaurs, same as as crocodiles, and it suddenly hit me that the same thing is for birds, that birds were dinosaurs too, and that they have been in the world for so long, so much longer than us. And yet they are addressed because of our existence and activity. And they have earned their space among us and here in this world, and it's important for us to remember it that they survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, and I hope they survive the extinction generated by humans. And I'm going to work very hard for that to happen.

Andrea Gress:

Yeah. Wow.

Jody Allair:

Well said, yeah, absolutely. They deserve. They deserve all living things deserve our respect, for sure. But I think I hope that when people hear this story or learn more about this story, you know, I hope people maybe develop even a little bit more respect for birds and the journey they've they've been on, and that they, they're, they're older than than we realize, which is pretty, pretty great.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Jody, thank you for that remarkable interview. Until next time, this is another episode of the Warblers go, Dinah watch everyone. Go diamond watch.

Jody Allair:

Go down to watch. Alright, thanks for having me. YouTube.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

warblers is produced by Andres Jimenez, Jody Allair, Ruth friendship Keller and Kate Dollgleish. This episode was edited by Greg McLaughlin and engineered by Katy, with the music part was a model an art by Alex Nico. Until next time, keep burning