Chickens are the closest living relative to the T-rex

The T-Rex is not so scary now, are they?

Did you ever think that a chicken would be the closet living relative to the T-rex? Photo by Sahand Babali on Unsplash.

We all grew up knowing T-rex as that scary, massive dinosaur. Especially the one from Jurassic Park.

And we probably breathed a collective sigh of relief knowing that the T-rex are obviously extinct. But it turns out their closet living relative still lives among us, albeit not as scary and dangerous (thank goodness).

And tasty I might add.

The T-rex is a stark contrast to their living relatives. Photo by Elly Enn on Unsplash

So, it’s crazy to think that their closet living relative is the chicken. Evolution clearly did a number on them.

How did we uncover this fact (pun intended)? Well, a group of palaeontologists were analysing a 68-million-year-old leg bone of a T-rex. The researchers discovered that the bone still contained some collagen fibres, a protein that provides flexibility and structure for bones. The researchers extracted this collagen and were able to sequence seven different T-rex proteins.

What they found from the sequencing, was that the collagen makeup of the T-rex, was almost identical to that of the modern chicken. This was followed by the ostrich then alligator.

Based on this fact, it’s no surprise that birds are pretty much considered dinosaurs.

Birds are a direct descendant of the Theropods, a clade of dinosaurs that is characterised by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. As well as birds, theropods also included the T-rex and velociraptor.

In the dinosaur age, theropods had wings, feathers with bird-like bodies and brains. Meaning they could fly. But instead of beaks, they had these toothy dinosaur snouts. The Archaeopteryx is an example of this.

The Archaeopteryx were the dinosaur version of birds. Illustration by Durbed on DeviantArt.

Gradually over time, the avian dinosaurs began to lose their teeth and evolve beaks, with smaller jaw bones. Their modern bird beak is what saved most of the avian dinosaurs when the asteroid hit earth around 65 million years ago.

It turns out in a post-cataclysm world; the beak was perfect for scavenging for food when there’s already a limited supply of it.

Then sure enough, the birds evolved overtime to form the current diversity of birds inhabiting this earth. Including our beloved chicken.

So next time you’re seeing a chicken, you’re also seeing a dinosaur. And potentially eating one.