National Geographic Daily News
An illustration of a theropod dinosaur.


Illustration courtesy Masato Hattori

Brian Switek

for National Geographic

Published May 30, 2013






Bird Fights









What's a Bird, Anyway?





The sheer number of feathery fossils complicates matters further.





Charles Weber
Charles Weber

The Cretaceous ocean predators were very large. I suspect that the productivity implied by this was caused by a flow of phosphorus toward the ocean from the savannas (seasonal rainfall areas) permitted by erosion of phosphorus rich runways of plant smothering termites in the Amitermitinae starting in late Jurassic in Australia where the first ocean phosphorite deposits occurred. Anoxic conditions in the oceans were also probably caused by this. This anoxic bottom condition probably helped reduce the ammonites also, in addition to competition from phosphorus enhanced vertebrates. The savanna herbivore dinosaurs declined in armor, teeth, and quite a bit in bony structure across the Cretaceous outside of South America, especially in southeast Asia. Many even lost teeth. I suggest it was due to this same phosphorus famine created by erosion of the soil of the runways of plant smothering termites. Pterosaurs and birds probably lost teeth primarily because of the young eating iron oxide and bauxite in the flying reproductive soil borne termites’ guts, which bound the phosphates. You may see this discussed in more detail starting in its links, which links explore the possible affect that ant evolution had upon them. By the time the Cretaceous ended the world ended up with tiny savanna vertebrates, most of them mammals, which were able to give their young phosphorus in milk at that critical stage. They were a far cry from the massive, well boned Stegosaurs, etc., which roamed around the Jurassic, and had diminished tooth structure at first. They were a long time starting to increase in size (several million years).

        You may see the affects on soil discussed in more detail in .

                                     Sincerely, Charles Weber

PSIt is conceivable that you would also find interesting a hypothesis of my son explaining the Decca (or Deccan) lava flows as disruption of the crust by the disruption of the crust at the antipode (opposite side of a sphere) by a huge meteorite impact. You may see my version in .

Sincerely, Charles Weber

Penelope Cooke
Penelope Cooke

why is this item listed under archaeology and not under science?

Akhmad Sidiqi
Akhmad Sidiqi

Is that any fur in his body besides their body?

Nick Danger3rdeye
Nick Danger3rdeye

Looks, and probably tastes, like angry chicken.

I've heard the creationist argument that there are no midstages between dinosaur and bird, because there are no midstages between flightless and gliding/flight.  But chickens use their feathered wings as 'air oars' to gain speed when running, and to help them hop to a taller roost that would otherwise be unavailable.  (Hard not to sneak in a WKRP joke here.)

Babu Ranganathan
Babu Ranganathan


All this talk of dinosaurs having feathers is nonsense and is not even accepted by most evolutionists. Some evolutionists have a certain interpretation of a fossil and this interpretation becomes extrapolate beyond into imagination and then you have artists giving expression to that imagination, but the media is all for such "news." Please read my popular Internet articles below.

Recently, it was thought they had discovered fossils of dinosaurs with feathers until they found out that many of the so-called feathers were actually scales. The scales took upon a feather-like appearance during the fossilization process. There's strong evidence that other structures interpreted as feathers are woolly plumages and collagen fibers. A few evolutionists (not even most) interpret these structures as proto-feathers and have artists drawing dinosaurs with fancy feathers for magazines and newspapers!


Visit my newest and very popular Internet site: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION

Babu G. Ranganathan*
(B.A. theology/biology)

I am author of the popular Internet article: TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS
* I have had the privilege of being recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis "Who's Who in The East" for my writings on religion and science, and I have given very successful lectures (with question and answer time afterwards) before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities.

Patrick Whalen
Patrick Whalen

Couldn't we distinguish stem-deinonychosaurs and  stem-birds by the ability to fly? Figuring out which actually flew and didn't is for some one else tho :)

C. Dufour
C. Dufour

@Babu Ranganathan For someone who feels he has enough credentials that he needs to boast about them in his signature, you sure make a lot of spelling mistakes.... not to mention mistakes in understanding basic evolutionary processes.

Matt McDowall
Matt McDowall

@Babu Ranganathan  

You sir are an embarrassment.

Even if your credentials are correct...a bachelor degree of biology with an even laughable theology...

heres a tip - why don't you listen to the professionals, you know the ones with more than a lame bachelor degree, and without a bias (theology - or should I say the study of nothing) and let them educate you.

C. Dufour
C. Dufour

@Patrick Whalen but then it becomes blurry as some branches of flying dinosaurs didn't actually evolve into birds (their branches died out) but some modern birds don't fly either such as ratites. 

I think morphology of the downstroke necessary for powered flight might be the best factor for bird evolution.

Barb Burk
Barb Burk

@Matt McDowall @Babu Ranganathan 


"There is the problem.  Are these dinosaurs with feathers?  The possibility would be they are not dinosaurs; they are very primitive birds...sometimes science needs a headline - Feathered order to get attention and in the end to get support..."
Dr. Peter Wellnhofer; Curator Emieritus , Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology, Munich

"The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith." Stors Olson, Curator of Birds, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

Want more????  It all depends which side of the fence you're on. 

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