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This relationship is doubtful, but the humble pigeon is a direct descendant of the dinosaur community, which includes the mighty T as well. Hey. Rex. 

A fascinating biological history is shared by both species. Prof Paul Barrett, a museum palaeontologist, discusses how our modern understanding of the evolution of dinosaurs changes the way scientists think. 

Today, the birds which fill the skies of the world are living dinosaurs, reminders of a distant and strange past.

Dinosaurs were once considered scaled-up lizards, but now they are considered very different. 

Paul says,' Dinosaurs have always ignited the imagination, but over time, our views of these amazing creatures have continuously shifted. 

Now our picture of dinosaurs is very different from that of the first palaeontologists working on these animals.'

Perhaps most shocking of all was the discovery of dinosaurs with feathers, fully altering the understanding of their appearance and behaviour by the scientific community. 

In the Dinosaurs section, the Museum's Deinonychus animatronics are wearing feathers, to give visitors an accurate picture of how these creatures once appeared. 


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Paul says,' Current predatory dinosaur reconstructions are startlingly bird-like and would have been utterly ridiculous to many scholars in the nineteenth century. 

The body size of certain theropod groups gradually decreased over the course of their evolutionary history - a process that eventually contributed to the emergence of birds, along with many other changes to the skeleton. 

Paul says,' The first feathered dinosaur was revealed in 1996 and several more have since come to light. This work has shown that Deinonychus was in fact feathered, initially portrayed as a scaly dinosaur.

In the early nineteenth century, the first dinosaur discoveries were made. Dinosaurs were initially thought to look like giant lizards, and were pictured as massive creatures, hundreds of feet in length. 

New findings mean that we have to continuously update opinions on the appearance, behavior and lifestyle of dinosaurs.