• Cabrio@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Chickens are the closest modern ancestor of the Tyranasaurus Rex. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Is it really chickens specifically that are the closest relative, not any other bird?

            • angrystego@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Nope. That’s just a shitty article. Here you can read that 1) what they compared was not T-rex’s DNA, it was collagen and 2) the results confirmed the closest relatives to dinosaurs were birds in general, not chicken. By the way, dinosaur DNA might indeed have already been found (in a hadrosaurid called Hypacrosaurus), but it’s not entirely sure yet.

              • Cabrio@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                So it’s inclusive of ostriches and not exclusive of chickens, so what I said was entirely correct just incomplete.

                • angrystego@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  angry

                  Technically yes. You forgot to include all other birds. Chicken and ostriches are mentioned at the beginning of the article as examples of birds.

    • JesusTheCarpenter@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      I hope you are not being sarcastic. It is exciting to find people that don’t know about this. And I am totally serious because this is such a cool discovery. While we knew for long time that birds are dinosaurs, seeing the latter with feathers makes today’s chicken looking even more majestic.

    • marcos@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The theropodes (raptors of all sizes) all had. Some even had some huge feathers on their heads, maybe with vibrant colors.

      I’m not sure what is currently known about the others. I know some definitively didn’t have feathers, and it was not only the theropodes that had them. The feathers had move diverse shapes than on the birds too.