Three truths
- Timed
- Branched off about 165 million years ago · the last 3.9% of life's story
- Named
- ≈11,000 named living species · 0.6% of all named
- Weighed
- ≈0.007 Gt C · 0.001% of all life's carbon
Eukaryotes · animals · class
Birds (living dinosaurs)
Aves
Living · roughly 11,000 described species
Feathered, egg-laying vertebrates. Birds are living dinosaurs: the one dinosaur lineage that survived the end-Cretaceous extinction.
Birds are dinosaurs: the one branch that survived the asteroid.
Key characteristics
- Feathers
- Toothless beaks
- Hard-shelled eggs
- Branched off
- About 165 million years ago (approximate)
- Parent lineage
- Theropods
Classification
- First common ancestor (LUCA)
- › Archaea
- › Asgard archaea
- › Heimdall and complex-cell line
- › Complex cells (eukaryotes)
- › Amorphea
- › Opisthokonts
- › Holozoa
- › Animals
- › Parahoxozoa
- › Bilaterians
- › Deuterostomes
- › Chordates
- › Vertebrates
- › Jawed vertebrates
- › Bony vertebrates
- › Lobe-finned vertebrates
- › Four-limbed vertebrates
- › Amniotes
- › Reptiles and birds
- › Archosaurs
- › Dinosaurs
- › Saurischians
- › Theropods
- › Birds (living dinosaurs)
Sources
- Bird (Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
- Dinosaur (Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
- TimeTree: the timescale of life · TimeTree
- Open Tree of Life · Open Tree of Life
- Tree of Life Web Project · Tree of Life Web Project