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Which animal is the Tyrannosaurus Rex most closely related to – the Crocodile or the Chicken?
This is one of those questions where the most obvious answer is not the right one. The fact is that T.Rex, in evolutionary terms, is closely related to the chicken. The birds descended from the dinosaurs – while the cold-blooded reptiles, including the crocodile, are on a far more ancient evolutionary branch.
T.Rex?
The scientific evidence comes from a study in which the amino-acid sequence from T. Rex collagen was compared to that of various modern species. It proved to be more similar to the chicken than any other creature alive today.
So, are chickens dinosaurs? No – the birds are a distinct group of animals, but they did descend from the dinosaurs, and it’s not too much of a twist of facts to call them modern dinosaurs.
There are many similarities between the two types of animal, largely to do with bone structure. It also appears that many of the dinosaurs had feathers – not for flight, but as adapted scales, to assist in heat regulation, and/or to assist in courtship displays, as in modern birds.
Comments
Michael, 6 March 2023
Birds are dinosaurs.They evolved from small, lightly built feathered dinosaurs, that evolved to glide. Quickly followed by flight itself. The 1st flying dinosaurs had teeth in their beaks. As an aid to better flight, they lost extra weight of teeth & fingers. But they didn't lose the direct bloodline of the dinosaur, nore the v dinosaurian skeletal anatomy. They are dinosaurs. Aka 'Avian dinosaurs'.
Eva, 29 July 2022
All birds are theropod avian dinosaurs. Crappy article without any trace of science behind it
Dexter, 28 July 2021
Chickens- as are all birds- are indeed dinosaurs, more specifically theropod dinosaurs. This means that a chicken is more closely related to a Tyrannosaurus rex than a Tyrannosaurus rex is related to a stegosaurus. Under the obsolete system of Linnaean Taxonomy, birds constitute the class aves whilst other reptiles constitute the class Reptila, but this is an outdated system which is now longer used by most scientists. The vast majority of scientists now use Cladistics, a system which classifies organisms based on evolutionary history. By using Cladistics, we can see that chickens (and all other birds) are indeed dinosaurs and thus also reptiles.