How did birds become the most diverse group of vertebrates, thriving in nearly every habitat on Earth? For centuries, this question baffled palaeontologists. The discovery of the Jurassic Archaeopteryx fossil in the 19th century provided an early clue, but it wasn’t until the late 20th century, when feathered dinosaurs were found in China, that their evolutionary story became clear – birds are the sole surviving descendants of dinosaurs.
Yet, one mystery remained – how did birds survive the asteroid that wiped out their giant cousins? In 2019, the discovery of a 67-million-year-old fossil in a Cambridge lab shed light on this mystery. Recent excavations, such as those in Las Hoyas in Spain, have added insights into the evolution of birds, revealing how they survived the catastrophe and rapidly diversified during the Cretaceous period.
Episode 1: The Rise of the Dino Birds
