Prof Steve Brusatte investigates dinosaur cognition using bird skull and behavior evidence
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Apr 26
Prof Steve Brusatte investigates dinosaur cognition using bird skull and behavior evidence
6 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Apr 26
Brusatte, a University of Edinburgh palaeontologist, leads an international team examining whether T rex and other dinosaurs showed cognitive traits like planning and empathy, inspired by laboratory tests on birds such as emus.
The research analyzes skull features and behavioral parallels between birds and dinosaurs, aiming to predict dinosaur mental capacities with high confidence, as detailed in Brusatte's new book, The Story of Birds.
Brusatte emphasizes that modern birds are direct dinosaur descendants, with fossil and genetic evidence linking them, and highlights birds' adaptability and survival through mass extinction as a key evolutionary success.
If birds are dinosaurs, have we been underestimating their intelligence all along?
How can scientists be 95% confident about the inner workings of a T. rex brain?
New fossils suggest bird flight evolved, was lost, then re-evolved. Why?
Did T. rex's small-beaked cousins simply outsmart the asteroid that killed them?
Could T. rex have been intelligent enough for empathy and planning?
With bird flu now killing thousands of sea lions, what species is next?
The Dinosaur-Bird Connection: How Feathers, Brains, and Survival Shaped Modern Birds
Overview
Birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs over millions of years, inheriting key traits like feathers, wings, hollow bones, and large brains that originally served non-flight purposes such as insulation and display. Feathers gradually became more complex, culminating in asymmetrical flight feathers seen in species like Microraptor, which enabled gliding and early flight. This evolution was supported by metabolic changes like endothermy, providing the energy needed for flight. Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid impact caused a mass extinction that wiped out most dinosaurs, but small, flying birds survived thanks to their size, flight ability, flexible diets, rapid reproduction, and cognitive skills. Their survival led to a vast diversification into the thousands of bird species we see today.