Dinosaurs are the closest living relative, even they diverged a long time ago. So what was the closest extinct relative to birds?
Dinosaurs are the closest living relative, even they diverged a long time ago. So what was the closest extinct relative to birds?
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Can you rephrase your question? It doesn’t really make sense, sorry. Birds are descendants of dinosaurs. They are the last living dinosaurs.
The closest relatives of birds that are extinct are birds. The slender-billed curlew was declared extinct late last year.
If you go back further and further you get animals that were common ancestors of a larger and larger group of animals. At what point do you decide that when two species differentiated, one is a bird and one is not? Is a Hongshanornis a bird? A Patagopteryx? An Enantiornith? A Confuciusornis? A Jixiangornis? What about the Alvarezsauroidea?