Science writer, and editor of Australian Geographic John Pickrell has delved into the latest discoveries and explains why birds are in fact a subspecies of dinosaur.
The four winged Microraptor was a contemporary of Cretaceous-era birds, and is likely to have preyed upon them. Image by palaeoartist Brian Choo.
Birds are a small specialised flight capable form of a dinosaur, a sub group of dinosaurs, which co-existed with dinosaurs but managed to survive the cataclysm 66 million years ago. - John Pickrell.
John Pickrell's book Flying Dinosaurs, How fearsome reptiles became birds looks back on the groundbreaking discovery of a feathered dinosaur in China in 1996 - the Sinosauropteryx
Sinosauropteryx fossil. Photo supplied.
He says many paleontologists now believe most carnivorous dinosaurs were feathered, including the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
A nine metre long early relative of the T-Rex that stalked northern China during the early Cretaceous period - the Ytyrannus had fluffy feathers. Image: Brian Choo.
John Pickrell's book also details attempts by a group of scientists in North America to use a chicken embryo to bring dinosaurs back from the dead.
John Pickrell talks about the latest dinosaur discoveries with Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon.
Angry epidexipteryx. Image by Alvaro Rosalen.
