Birds today have dinosaur DNA. They have dinosaur blood in their veins. Birds evolved directly from Velociraptor-type animals and are the only true dinosaurs that still exist. Steve Brusatte is a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and has been studying 150 million years’ worth of bird evolution, from surviving the asteroid that wiped out their contemporaries to today’s adaptation into almost every niche. Brusatte introduces elephant birds, terror birds, demon ducks and penguins the size of gorillas, and why “when gulls dive bomb you and try to steal your pasty or your chips”, says Brusatte, “you really can sense in the nastiness, the cunning, the agility, the feistiness. You can sense that inner Velociraptor.”
Read more: The evolving science of dinosaurs
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