Hey, it's Ira Flato, and you're listening to Science Friday. Birds are dinosaurs. It's something we hear a lot from experts, especially if you listen to this show. But you've got to admit that looking at a backyard sparrow does not quite evoke the same awe as the dino bones in the museum do, right?

Well, my next guest urges you to just get over it.

Rethink birds and give them the same credit as their fearful ancestors.

Steve Rossotti is a paleontologist and author of the new book, The Story of Birds, a new history from

their dinosaur origins to the present.

He's based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Welcome back, Steve.

Good to have you back.

Always a pleasure, Ira.

I love chatting about dinosaurs and fossils on the show over the years.

And I'm, of course, excited now that we're going to be talking

about dinosaurs and birds together. You know, I think of you more as a dinosaur guy, as we have

talked over the years. Why change suddenly your focus to birds? What it comes down to is that

today's birds are real, true and and by that i'll just be

very direct about it they are part of the dinosaur family tree they evolved from other dinosaurs and

yes a sparrow a pigeon a gull it looks nothing like a t-rex or a brontosaurus but we humans are

mammals we look nothing like an elephant or a whale. We are just one of many

mammals. And the same is true of birds. They're one of many types of dinosaurs. And really the way we

need to think about birds is the way we think about bats. Bats are a mammal. Of course they are.

They evolve from other mammals. They have all the classic features of mammals, hair and molar teeth and so on.

But they're just a strange mammal that got small, evolved wings, developed the ability to fly,

and birds are the dinosaur equivalent of that.

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