{"id":189029,"date":"2024-05-09T17:28:52","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T22:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/molecular-analysis-confirms-t-rexs-evolutionary-link-to-birds"},"modified":"2024-05-09T17:28:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T22:28:52","slug":"molecular-analysis-confirms-t-rexs-evolutionary-link-to-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/molecular-analysis-confirms-t-rexs-evolutionary-link-to-birds","title":{"rendered":"Molecular analysis confirms T. Rex\u2019s evolutionary link to birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/molecular-analysis-confirms-t-rexs-evolutionary-link-to-birds.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p> <span class=\"wp-smiley emoji emoji-face_with_colon_three\" title=\":3\">face_with_colon_three<\/span> year 2008.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Putting more meat on the theory that dinosaurs\u2019 closest living relatives are modern-day birds, molecular analysis of a shred of 68-million-year-old <a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/animals.nationalgeographic.com\/animals\/prehistoric\/tyrannosaurus-rex.html\">Tyrannosaurus rex<\/a> protein \u2014 along with that of 21 modern species \u2014 confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with chickens, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators.<\/p>\n<p>The work, published this week in the journal <em><a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/\">Science<\/a><\/em>, represents the first use of molecular data to place a non-avian dinosaur in a phylogenetic tree that traces the evolution of species. The scientists also report that similar analysis of 160,000-to 600,000-year-old collagen protein sequences derived from <a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.museum.state.il.us\/exhibits\/larson\/mammut.html\">mastodon<\/a> bone establishes a close phylogenetic relationship between that extinct species and modern elephants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese results match predictions made from skeletal anatomy, providing the first molecular evidence for the evolutionary relationships of a non-avian dinosaur,\u201d says co-author <a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oeb.harvard.edu\/faculty\/edwards\/people\/postdocs\/organ.htm\">Chris Organ<\/a>, a postdoctoral researcher in organismic and evolutionary biology at <a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.harvard.edu\/\">Harvard University<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>face_with_colon_three year 2008. Putting more meat on the theory that dinosaurs\u2019 closest living relatives are modern-day birds, molecular analysis of a shred of 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein \u2014 along with that of 21 modern species \u2014 confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with chickens, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators. The work, published this [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,385,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-evolution","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}