If, as paleontologists say, birds are the last living dinosaurs, how did they survive the asteroid crash that caused the extinction of their congeners 65 million years ago?
The answer was given by a team of researchers coordinated by experts from the Millner Center for Evolution in the United Kingdom, after thoroughly studying the fossil record. Apparently, the impact of the space rock caused global deforestation and the extinction of most flowering plants. This, in turn, caused the ancient birds, called enantiornitas, to disappear, as they lived in the trees. However, some flightless survived.
Reconstruction of the evolutionary tree of modern birds shows that they all evolved from a small bird that lived on the ground and looked quite like the modern partridge.
