Imagine if I told you everything you knew about dogs and cats was wrong… because we
decided that some animals we’d been calling dogs were actually cats.
If that happened, you’d probably have questions, right?
Well, that.
just.
happened.
This is a part of the dinosaur family tree.
On the left is the family that contains the Brontosaurus, Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus
all over here in the Saurischia.Then here in the Ornithischia is the Stegosaurus and
Torosaurus (a.k.a, Triceratops).
Saurischia, Ornithischia -- aren’t randomly assigned names.
As humans found more and more of these ancient bones, we started putting them into groups…
and just like Chubbs said, it’s all in the hips.
These animals have three bones in their hips: the Ilium, Ischium and Pubis.
On Saurischians, they’re arranged like this.
This is called LIZARD HIPPED -- great band name.
And in Ornithischians they’re like this -- called BIRD HIPPED.
Theropoda means beast-footed.
It’s a sub-category.
Big.
Difference.
And this is how paleontologists started categorizing these animals to trace their ancestry… it
dates back to 1887.
Until now.
In 2017, British scientists analyzed the anatomical samples and you know what.
Their hips don’t lie.
Here’s what they’re proposing.
Ornithischians are not a separate group, but in fact, grouped with Theropods -- they want
to call this group Ornithoscelida -- a name thrown out in 1887, btw.
THEN if that weren’t crazy enough…
This paper alleges, that the anatomy indicates the Saurischia are actually TWO groups.
Sauropodomorphs should be its own category -- meaning Diplodocus and Brontosaurus might
not even be dinosaurs.
What?!
First you tell me the triceratops isn’t real, and now Brontosaurus might not even
be a dinosaur.
But that’s not all... the analysis also says dinosaurs are almost 100 million years
older than we thought they were -- at 247 million years.
And that they may have evolved in the Northern Hemisphere rather than the Southern.
There’s obviously a lot here.
The important thing to remember is, your favorite dinosaurs aren’t going anywhere.
But the way we’re thinking about how to organize them in complex charts like this
-- is being completely rewritten.
To do that… the researchers created a computerized model.
They took three years, visiting museums filled with dinosaurs all over the world.
They used the data available to calculate 457 different anatomical characteristics of
many species of dino (there are over 1,000 known) -- and looked for patterns.
From there, they made a computer model to form the best tree of life based on the data.
They plugged in the numbers over the years, and clicked go.
In five minutes it analyzed 32 billion different trees and picked the best one.
Done and done.
The click heard ‘round the Jurassic World didn’t immediately change everything though.
They’re just suggesting the tree be rewritten. 130 years of tradition isn’t going to be
swept away overnight.
Now lots of nerds all over the world are going to debate dinosaur hips.
Yep.
It’s going to get lit.
Now that it’s generally accepted dinosaurs became birds, paleontologists are trying to
find out where the first dinosaur evolved, and how -- hoping to reveal more about the
history of life on our planet.
We only know dinosaurs exist today because of the bones of a few that died in very specific
ways -- allowing their bodies (or tiny parts of them) to be preserved.
There will be potentially thousands of species that we never find, and could have existed
completely without our knowledge.
So we have to base our understanding on what is left.
One of the researchers put it humbly, and well.
Just because this is backed up by data “doesn’t mean it’s right, just that it’s the best
we can do with the data we’ve got at the moment.”
I mean, if scientists were potentially wrong about something as fundamental as whether
these dinosaurs were bird-like or lizard-like… what else might science have to revise in
the future…
Research More Needed Is.
So ... are you curious how dinosaurs even evolved into birds?
I’ve got a video for you explaining that, right here.
What do you think of these new classifications?
Let us know in the comments and subscribe for more videos on seeker