Summary
This animal is the baddest bird on the face of the planet: They decapitate crocodiles and deliberately defecate on their own legs. Why? Listen to find out. This bird is bad to the bone from the moment their born.
Come learn all about the creature, and finally discover whether or not birds are dinosaurs on this episode of Species.
Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EbSO3bks7w2jy1vIDPDapLqmZVZlmBIFT7HtZR3Ody8/edit?usp=sharing
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Has anyone ever told you that birds are dinosaurs? |
| 0:06.0 | Not that birds are related to dinosaurs, but that they ARE dinosaurs? |
| 0:11.0 | Well, it depends on what your definition of R is. |
| 0:15.0 | I'll explain. |
| 0:16.0 | If you look at a family tree of life on earth, including extinct animals, you will see that in one |
| 0:22.6 | section, there are all the dinosaurs, all descending from a common ancestor. This is the dinosaur |
| 0:27.9 | family tree. And then among the dinosaurs on a random branch nestled amongst the others is the |
| 0:34.2 | quote, unquote, first bird, who gave rise to all the other species of bird you see out there today, |
| 0:41.2 | from the bee hummingbird to the Philippine eagle. |
| 0:45.2 | Now, from a phylogenetic perspective, it's hard to cut this branch off the dinosaur lineage and start a new tree. |
| 0:52.3 | That's just not how things are done in biology. But that's |
| 0:56.3 | really exactly what we've kind of casually done with birds. We don't label them dinosaurs, |
| 1:01.6 | even if we know that's what they are. Dinosaurs, as we imagine them, are big, lumbering, |
| 1:09.3 | prehistoric creatures with massive jaws. |
| 1:13.1 | The house sparrow, the European starling, the budgera, the animals we talk about on this show, |
| 1:18.1 | they don't really fit in in Jurassic Park, do they? |
| 1:23.8 | But today's animal wood. |
| 1:26.6 | The shoe bill. |
| 1:28.6 | Belineasepsiceps wrecks. |
| 1:31.1 | Even the Latin name feels right. |
| 1:33.4 | I'm Mackin. This is species. |
| 1:39.4 | Hey, welcome to the show. |
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