Is there really any significance to similarities between
Rahonavis and Deinonychus?
27th August 2002
Question
The similarity between animals like Rahonavis (a bird) and
Deinonychus (a dinosaur) are cited as evidence that dinosaurs
and birds are closely related, sometime with the implication that the
former is descended from the latter. But these are both Cretaceous
animals, while true birds such as Archaeopteryx date from the
Jurassic, more than thirty million years earlier, and maybe much
earlier even than this. If birds split from dinosaur lineages so
early, is there really any significance to similarities between
Rahonavis and Deinonychus?
Answer
[Answer to question class - similar goes here]