Ornithischians Who Are Bird-Hipped Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs can be classified in the groups known as ornithischians that are bird-hipped dinosaurs. The saurischian, were reptile-hipped dinosaurs. Even though birds are avian their common ancestor are non-avian saurischians. “Birds have many ancestors such as the Dilophosaurus, Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, and lastly leading to the Archaeopteryx. The closest ancestor of dinosaurs to birds are the Archaeopteryx. From each lineage or generation dinosaurs inherited certain features that make them distinct to birds today” (Lee, Nash, and Dyke 2014). For example the hip socket, the claws, the wings, and the inherited able to fly. The Archaeopteryx lived in the Jurassic Era. That eventually ended in extinction. “The Cretaceous Tertiary or K-T extinction, which was a mass extinction of the animals and plant species that were on Earth that occurred over million years ago. This served as conclusion of the Cretaceous period” (Alvarez, Alvarez, Asaro, and Michel).
The Archaeopteryx clearly showed the features of the bird with feathers like that of today’s birds. The Archaeopteryx show that they can be linked to birds. “Archaeopteryx and birds have three digits that their wings originated, and most importantly that birds inherited their flight from them. The similarity between birds and dinosaurs was first discovered by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1868” (Morell 1993). Though many individuals did not believe in this theory at first until it was later confirmed by John Harold Ostrom in the 1960s. That birds did indeed evolve from