My Identity Crisis
Dear reader,
This is Red speaking. Some of you may know me from the game, and now the movie, Angry Birds. If so, then I’m sure you all also know that the main reason why I have been able to make it so big is, well, because people seem to like to be entertained by the fact that I’m always angry.
It is now November 2020, four years after my Hollywood big break. Like many of us celebrities, our activities have been greatly limited due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This particular time in our history really evoked a lot of really quite existential questions for me. We hear every day on the news about the number of people who have been newly infected, and the number of people who have, unfortunately, passed away. All this talk about life and death has really given me time to reflect on things. It especially made me think about that one time I was in a book store and came across a dinosaur encyclopedia. It was quite some existential thinking. Why, you ask? Here’s why.
Dinosaurs. A group of reptiles that always seemed very intriguing to me. They are also always portrayed by the entertainment industry (my industry) as very angry—just like me. I’d wondered why that was. In fact, I’ve always felt a certain identification with dinosaurs. I’ve never really been able to explain it. It was almost, like, ~spritual~. It’s a shame that they were long wiped out by an asteroid strike almost 65 million years ago. If this hadn’t happened, would they still be here today? Would I be able to meet them? I’d wondered.
As I flipped through the encyclopedia, I stopped at the page which begins the chapter on Archeopteryx…I had always been intrigued by how much they looked like…birds…Perhaps that was a contributing element to why I’d always felt a connection to the dinosaurs.
As I was recalling my time at the library, I realized that I needed to get to the bottom of this. I wanted desperately to find an explanation for why I was feeling this way. What better time to do this than now, during the pandemic, when we are under lockdown and directors are not constantly fighting over me to star in their new blockbuster movie…
So, I began with a quick I google search of Archeopteryx, as well as the terms “bird dinosaur.” This opened a door full of mystery and awe that completely transformed my own understanding of who I am.
Wait for it….
I am a dinosaur!
Now, you might think that I’m crazy or whatever, but I’m really not! Despite the fact that our small bodies and hollow bones make us birds scarce in the fossil record, enough evidence has been gathered by scientists for most of them to be confident in claiming that birds are actually modern-day dinosaurs.
As Luis Chiappe, the director of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles Country says, “there is no doubt that birds are dinosaurs. The evidence is so overwhelming, I would put it next to whether or you’re going to question if humans are primates.”
This does not mean that they were always so confident.
In the history of paleontology, whether or not my me and my fellow birds are dinosaurs has actually been contested—with scientists debating back and forth and raising new evidence or points that contradict each other.
In order to convince you that I am a dinosaur, let me take you through the journey of how scientists essentially confirmed this!
The idea that we birds descended from dinosaurs was first raised by the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley.
In 1870, he published a piece titled “Further Evidence of the Affinity between the Dinosaurian Reptiles and Birds.” Huxley noted how there is very little difference between the bone structures of Compsognathus, a small dinosaur genus that walks on its two hind legs, and the Archaeopteryx, the flying bird-like dinosaur.
Take a look! Now I would definitely say that they are very very similar! What this suggests is that the archaeopteryx’s flight abilities could have been a trait that evolved from species such as Compsognathus as a result of natural selection—the process through which populations of living organisms adapt to their environment. Just by looking at their skeleton, we can see how the wings of Archaeopteryx definitely closely resemble the forelegs of Compsognathus.
Huxley also said that if we were to enlarge the leg of a baby chicken and fossilize them somehow, “there would be nothing in their characters to prevent us from referring them to the Dinosauria.”
This was totally out of nowhere for me. I was still not totally convinced of the connection between modern birds like chickens—and like me—and dinosaurs. That is, of course, until I came across this image.
Despite the fact that the chicken developed other traits such as a larger breastbone, no teeth, and a shorter tail, we can really see the similarities in the shape of the skull and the legs—think Huxley’s point about enlarging and fossilizing a chicken’s legs!
However, because I really want to get to the bottom of this, I am interested in the scientific facts. Just seeing these physical differences would not be enough.
Usually, in the field of science, hypotheses have to be scrutinized rigorously. It turns out, this scrutiny is exactly what Huxley’s points faced.
Scientists have raised good anatomical arguments about how dinosaurs lacked certain distinct features that we associate with birds—and to be honest, that's one of the major doubts I had as well. A lot of us birds are small, speedy, warmblooded, and—most importantly—intelligent! The impression I always got from dinosaurs is that they are dull, plodding, cold-blooded, and small-brained…
How could we…
= this?
Some of the specific features that scientists brought up which are present in birds but not in most dinosaurs include a bone called a wishbone, bones filled with air pockets, three-toed feet, and flexible wrist joints.
However, in the 1960s, scientists found another fossilized dinosaur skeleton which turned things around once again.
That’s the beauty of science—new evidence and arguments are unveiled little by little, allowing us to arrive a step closer to whatever the truth may be.
The fossil was named Deinonychus, or “terrible claw,” and was found in Montana, U.S. The reason it was named this way was because of its sickle-shaped talon on each hindfoot. It stood over three meters from head to tail, definitely falling out of the traditional understanding of “bird”.
This predator, however, had a similar bone structure to that of Archaeopteryx. What this told the scientists was that the anatomical features that they once thought were unique to birds—such as fused clavicles—were not uncommon in dinosaur species after all. When comparing Deinonychus to the Velociraptor—scientists also realized that they both had flexible wrist joints and bones with air pockets. As Paleontologist Matthew Carrano of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History puts it: “all those things were yanked out of the definition of being a bird.”
In the 1970s and 1980s, paleontologists found that the skeletons of birds are similar to one specific group of dinosaurs: the theropods. These are bipedal (walking upright) carnivorous dinosaurs including the Velociraptor and the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex.
I mean, all of this is pretty convincing stuff if you ask me…However, there were a few more things that I was uncertain of—one of them being the trait of feathers. I mean dinosaurs are reptiles…and reptiles…don’t have feathers!
Or so I thought…When I was digging into this stuff, I actually learned that feathers were one of the defining traits that linked theropods to birds! Crazy, right?
In the late 1990s, several new fossils were found in China which uncovered non-flying theropods that were covered with strange outgrowths. These outgrowths had the same structures as the feathers on us birds. While closer relatives of birds such as the Archaeopteryx had feathers, other theropods had simple tufts. What this means is that certain traits that we associate with birds had actually developed long before the creatures that look like me existed!
Even though I use my feathers to fly (I swear I can!), scientists concluded that most of these early tetrapods couldn't have. One main reason for this was because their bodies were too large in comparison to their arms.
However, us birds use feathers for a variety of different reasons, and it is reasonable to conclude that those dinosaurs feathers had different purposes as well. For example, some of us have feathers because they look pretty darn good, and we can attract our potential lovers. I’m telling you, the term “lovebirds” exists for a reason.
Another thing is, we use our feathers to help insulate our eggs—you know, like sit on them to keep them warm. In fact, a fossil was discovered in 1993 of a theropod known as an oviraptor was very striking because it lay on top of its nest of eggs.
Despite the fact that many of these theropods did not fly, scientists are able to examine their fossils to hypothesize how flight could have evolved. For example, fossil evidence shows that Deinonychus could have swung its slender, clawed arms up and down to help catch prey. Moreover, some of us modern birds use swing our feathers to give us some thrust as we run.
Baby birds also are able to run up almost completely vertical surfaces when escaping from predators.
Thus, scientists theorize that for the ancient theropods, feathers could have had a similar use.
Now that seems like a whole lot of evidence for the relation between dinosaurs and my kind for me…but there’s actually even more! Well, there should be, given that scientists nowadays are practically confident with claiming that us birds are dinosaurs.
Let me go through some more of the evidence.
Firstly, if we look at the skull structure of us birds vs. them ancient theropods, they are actually quite similar. In fact, the reason why birds, theropods, and other reptiles are all grouped into one category by many scientists is because of the fact that they all share the feature of having two temporal gaps—or holes in the back of their skull. On the other hand, mammals like you have one temporal gap.
One last factor that troubled many scientists was the fact that dinosaurs were always considered to be cold-blooded animals, like many of our modern-day reptiles are. This is where the science gets interesting.
Recently, scientists have discovered evidence that point against the argument that dinosaurs could not have been endothermic (warm-blooded), and they found this actually not in dinosaur fossils, but rather in herbivorous mammals. Isn’t that so interesting? It’s quite amazing how scientists are able to discover this kind of thing with a totally different kind of animal existing in the modern-day!
Anyways, so paleontologists have found that there are what is known as “lines of arrested growth” (LAGs) a.k.a lines of increased bone density in dinosaurs. This is a trait usually found in reptile creatures (ectotherms) like lizards and crocodiles, who need to regulate their body temperature with the outside environment (because they are “cold-blooded.”) Endotherms, on the other hand, don’t usually need this trait because they are able to maintain a constant, high body temperature as a result of their metabolism—simply defined as the chemical reactions that happen within the body. Keep in mind here that creatures with high metabolisms, such as you and me, need to always keep eating to maintain their high body temperature.
Scientists had associated LAGs with creatures found in particular environments that are cold, dry, or where resources are scarce. However, recently, the paleontologist Meike Kohler and her team have found that actually, LAGs can be present in creatures that live in an entire spectrum of environments—from the tropics to the poles. This countered the argument that LAGs have to equal cold-blooded creatures. As Kohler says, “LAGs cannot be used as an argument that dinosaurs could not have been endothermic.”She goes further by stating that the bone tissue between the LAGs of dinosaurs actually indicates that they sustained quite high metabolisms—going as far as saying that it is indistinguishable from the ruminants (a certain group of animals like cattle, sheep, and deer) of today.
And hear this, I love this quote. An anatomist who examined Kohler’s study actually says that “the growing weight of evidence has been winning over scientists, myself included, to the view that endothermy evolved quite early in dinosaurs and was inhered by birds.”
Well, there you have it! If you still are not convinced that I, a bird, am also a modern-day dinosaur, you must be really stubborn. I, on the other hand, listen to scientific facts.
For those of you who do believe me, isn’t it quite marvelous how science works? These scientists debating back and forth and uncovering new information to put together the pieces of the puzzle to try to explain how things are in this world…and in this case, it was my identity that they explored! I have great respect for scientists who study evolution because, well, you can’t re-run evolution. Fossils, especially those of us birds, are also oftentimes extremely hard to find. The scientists, however, continue to power through and slowly, through time and the discovery of new information, are able to generate an ever more clear picture of how the world works.
So yeah. The existential identity crisis that I mentioned at the beginning? I finally figured it out. The reason why I may have felt connected to dinosaurs on a somewhat spiritual level is not that I’m an angry bird (although I think this still may be a factor…too bad science can’t prove the spiritual…) but rather because as a bird, I’m literally a dinosaur as well. Thank you, archaeologists; thank you, paleontologists; thank you, biologists, and thank you all scientists, for guiding my path towards becoming more aware of who I am in this world.
Until next time,
Red
References
Black, R. (2019, November 14). Newly Discovered Fossil Bird Fills in Gap Between Dinosaurs and Modern Fliers. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/newly-discovered-fossil-bird-fills-gap-between-dinosaurs-and-modern-fliers-180973551/
Deinonychus. (n.d.). Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/dino-directory/deinonychus.html
Hendry, L. (n.d.). Why are birds the only surviving dinosaurs? Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/why-are-birds-the-only-surviving-dinosaurs.html
Katis, C. (Director). (2016). Angry Birds [Video file].
Michael Le Page and Jeff Hecht. (2015, February 18). Stunning fossils: Big Mama brooding. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26970-stunning-fossils-big-mama-brooding/
Mike Lee Senior Research Scientist (joint appointment with South Australian Museum), & Gareth Dyke Palaeontologist. (2020, December 02). How small birds evolved from giant meat eating dinosaurs. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/how-small-birds-evolved-from-giant-meat-eating-dinosaurs-28540
Patalong, F. (2013, July 31). Das Vogelhirn entwickelte sich schon bei Dinosauriern — DER SPIEGEL — Wissenschaft. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/das-vogelhirn-entwickelte-sich-schon-bei-dinosauriern-a-913659.html
Peters, D. (2014, March 15). The Origin of Archaeopteryx — Illustrated. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/the-origin-of-archaeopteryx-illustrated/
Solutions, S. (n.d.). Archaeopteryx. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.q-files.com/prehistoric/dinosaur-species/archaeopteryx/
Switek, B. (2012, June 27). Dinosaurs Might Have Had Warm-Blooded Animals’ Fast Metabolism. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dinosaurs-warm-blooded-animals-metabolism
Zimmer, C. (n.d.). The Tree of Life. In (pp. 71–75).
Week Three Video Lecture
