Jurassic/Cretaceous—Are birds really dinosaurs?

Are Birds Really Dinosaurs? University of California, Berkeley. Short discussion of dinosaur-bird relationships, with a good discussion of the history of this hypothesis, a list of 20 shared characteristics, and also some objections to the hypothesis. (Note: These objections were raised before the current findings of feathered dinosaur fossils from China).

China's Feathered Dinosaurs. Yale-Peabody Museum. Good overview of Sinosauropteryx, with pictures of the fossil remains, as an example of a theropod dinosaur with primitive "downy-like" plumage. To see more development of feathers on dinosaurs, you can compare Sinosauropteryx to Caudipteryx, which had well-developed arm and tail plumage.

 

 

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