Baby Boom: Did Retained Juvenile Traits Help Birds Outlive Dinosaurs?
Thursday, May 31, 2012 - 16:24
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Birds are the only dinosaurs that have survived into modern times. Why is that? Of all the dinosaur species, how did they manage to make it through the catastrophic events of 65 million years ago, whereas all their fellow dinos perished? A new study, published May 27 in Nature , hints at an evolutionary phenomenon that may have played to birds' advantage: They are, it seems, baby dinosaurs whose biology prevents them from ever growing up. ( Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) [More]