Dinosaurs With Feathers: The Ancestors of Modern Birds
DINOSAURS WITH FEATHERS The Ancestors of Modern Birds by CAROLINE ARNOLD illustrated by Laurie Caple
BIRDS IN THE AGE OF DINOSAURS One hundred fifty million years ago a crow-size bird glided on feather-covered wings across a tropical lagoon in what is now southern Germany Along the lagoon’s muddy shore dragonflies hovered bees buzzed and small meat eating dinosaurs hunted for lizards Sharing the sky with the bird were flying reptiles called pterosaurs which soared on narrow skin-covered wings For some reason that we will never know the bird did not complete its journey across the lagoon Instead it plunged into the water and died It sank to the bottom where fine-grained chalky mud gently covered its body almost perfectly preserving the delicate skeleton as well as an impression of feathers
There the bird lay encased in its muddy tomb until its discovery millions of years later The ancient bird lived during a period of the Earth’s history called the Mesozoic Era a time when dinosaurs were the dominant land animals Scientists divide the Mesozoic Era into three periods the Triassic about 250 to 208 million years ago the Jurassic about 208 to 144 million years ago and the Cretaceous about 144 to 65 million years ago The ancient bird that fell into the sea lived at the end of the Jurassic Period During the Cretaceous Period that followed there was a great expansion of bird species ranging from sparrow-size tree dwellers dwellers to loon-like water birds Recent fossil discoveries of ancient birds and of dinosaurs that were their close relatives are helping helping us to learn about the amazing diversity of life in the Mesozoic Era and how adaptations such as feathers may have helped some of these animals in their daily lives
