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ANIMALS

10 animals with pre-historic

roots
By Nickie Latham

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Ever since the first discovery of

dinosaur fossils, people have
been captivated; wondering
what life would be like if
prehistoric animals and humans
co-existed. Who isn’t gripped by
the thrilling concept of a giant
lizard predator chasing them
down the street? Or merely by
being able to wave at a passing
Stegosaurus?

That said, humans already share the planet

with species that are just as old as
dinosaurs and others that are directly
descended from them. Some haven’t
changed much over the past tens of
millions of years, whilst others are
practically unrecognisable.

1. Crocodiles

This is what you came for: big, scary

reptiles, right? Well, crocodiles share a
heritage with dinosaurs as part of a group
known as archosaurs (“ruling reptiles”), who
date back to the Early Triassic period (250
million years ago). The earliest crocodilian,
meanwhile, evolved around 95 million
years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period.
Modern day crocodiles descended from
prehistoric alligators such as Deinosuchus;
low to the ground water-dwelling predators
with a long snout, a powerful tail and lots
and lots of teeth.

Interestingly, aside from crocodiles, the only

other archosaurs known to have survived
into the modern era are birds. This means
that crocodiles are closely related to the
ducks in your local pond, so be careful the
next time you go to feed them (just in case).

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The earliest crocodilian evolved around 95 million years

ago.

2. Cassowaries

Judging by its giant, claw-like feet alone, it’s

easy to see why people think this giant bird
is directly descended from dinosaurs such
as velociraptors. They are the third largest
bird species in the world and have been
known to attack humans. These creatures
can be found in northern Australia, Papua
New Guinea and Indonesia, and have
signature blue necks. Some fun facts for
you: they produce green eggs and are also
really good swimmers.

One of the other characteristics that may

link the cassowary to dinosaurs is their
casque – the leathery crest on their heads
from which their name is derived (“kasu”
means horned in Papuan, while “weri”
means head). The use of this quiff-like
appendage is a topic of some debate. Some
scientists believe it can be used to reduce
heat1, while others suggest it’s used to help
the cassowary achieve its booming call2,
which can hit frequencies that are too low
for humans to hear.

Cassowaries are the world's third largest bird species.

3. Tuatara

Here is a similarly remarkable beast, and

the sole survivor of a genetic lineage that
originated in the early Triassic. Tuataras are
members of the reptile group
Rhynchocephalia, which blossomed into
full diversity between 240 million and 60
million years ago. They live in the islands
off the coast of New Zealand, feeding on
beetles, spiders, and snails, as well as small
birds that they decapitate with their saw-
like teeth. Tuatara can live to be around 100
years old and operate surprisingly well in
low temperatures.

They may be commonly referred to as a

living dinosaur, but to illustrate just how
genetically isolated tuataras have become
as a species, let’s look at some
statistics.3 Among the animal grouping
“amniote vertibrates”, there are 30,000
modern species divided into six major
groups: birds (at least 15,845), lizards and
snakes (10,078), mammals (5,416 species),
turtles (341), crocodilians (25), and, erm,
tuatara (1).

Tuatara are the sole survivors of a genetic lineage that

originated in the early Triassic period. © Kevin Schafer

4. Sharks

In a way, it’s an insult to sharks to consider

them modern day dinosaurs because
they’re much older. Their ancestors evolved
into recognisably shark-like shapes over
450 million years ago, during the Silurian
period. They have survived every major
extinction event since the seas were filled
with Trilobites . By contrast, dinosaurs
are just a flash in the pan.

With a lineage this lengthy, the scope for

diversity4 in terms of their make-up and
appearance is huge. As with many of the
species in this list, there are giants lurking
in the shark family tree, such as the
Megalodon. And while we may think that
hammerhead sharks are odd, their T-
shaped heads are nothing compared to the
dinner plate sized, spiral-shaped tooth
structure of the Helicoprion, or the anvil-
shaped dorsal fin of the Stethacanthus.
Some species of shark even developed the
ability to glow in the dark, which would
have made Jaws a very different film,
visually speaking.

Sharks have survived major extinction events.

5. Lizards

While they share a reptilian ancestry that

goes back millions of years – and have
many common genetic traits, such as the
laying of eggs – lizards and dinosaurs went
on to follow separate paths of development.
This is most evident when you consider
their legs. If you imagine any of your
favourite dinosaurs, their legs point straight
to the ground, like those of horses or
humans. By contrast, lizards and crocodiles
have legs that sprawl out to the side.

In fact, for all that dinosaur means “terrible

lizard”, lizards are only a distant relation to
any archosaurs, having split from their
common ancestry when they first emerged
in the Late Triassic. They – and their snake
cousins, under the banner of squamates –
went on to adapt and change, resulting in
more than 10,000 living species and hun-
dreds of now-extinct ones. Depending on
circumstance, lizards have had the time to
develop a breath-taking arsenal of abilities;
swimming, gliding, scaling trees and
hanging from ceilings, climbing sheer
surfaces, walking on water and losing and
re-growing their own tails. This extreme
adaptability is almost certainly the key to
their survival in the face of several
significant extinction events.

Lizards are extremely adaptable reptiles.

6. Crabs

They’re not dinosaur descendants, they’re

not lizards and they did not evolve into
birds, but crabs deserve a special mention
in this list for developing the kind of
personal armoury that, pound for pound,
would make an Ankylosaurus think twice.

Lobsters and other filter-feeding

crustaceans first emerged millions of years
before dinosaurs, and in fact the creatures
we call horseshoe crabs (more closely
related to spiders than modern crabs)
appeared around 450 million years ago. But
true crabs are a dinosaur-era phenomenon,
as they arrived on the scene between 200
and 150 million years ago. They flourished
so well in fact, that scientists have ascribed
a name to their greatest period of diversity,
during which 80% of modern crab groups
evolved: “the Cretaceous crab revolution”.5
Their diversification paved the way for
crabs to inhabit a wide variety of
environments. This laid the groundwork for
them to survive the mass extinction event
that wiped out three quarters of the plant
and animal species on Earth, including
dinosaurs.

Crabs have diversified to inhabit a wide variety of

environments.

7. Ostriches

Ostriches, cassowaries, kiwis and emus

belong to a group of large flightless birds
called ratites. Their link with the dinosaurs?
Ornithologist Peter Houde6, of the Smith-
sonian Institution, put forward the theory
that small dinosaurs evolved into small
birds, some of which flew to environments
where their success as a species depended
on staying on the ground. He felt that
ratites had evolved “backwards” into a loss
of flight, otherwise there could be no
explanation for their sudden appearance in
vari-ous island landmasses. The reverse
evolution might also explain the shaggy
feathers and “reptile jaw” of the ostrich,
which may have grown to its current size in
order to fight off larger predators.

Ostriches, cassowaries, kiwis and emus belong to a group

of large flightless birds called ratites. © Anup Shah

8. Sea turtles

Turtles are exceptionally successful as a

species. They are part of the Testudine
group of reptiles, including tortoises and
terrapins, found on every continent apart
from Antarctica, which have evolved to live
on land and in both salt and fresh water.
They share common ancestry with
dinosaurs – having first appeared around
230 million years ago – and show
remarkable resilience considering their
fellow creatures are being wiped out.
Turtles also survived one mass extinction at
the end of the Tri-assic period that le an
evolutionary space for dinosaurs to evolve,
as well as the one at the end of the
Cretaceous era that then wiped out the
dinosaurs.

Those shells are clearly very tough, because

immediately aer that catastrophe, turtles
began to diversify, hugely. There is some
debate as to whether turtles count as
archosaurs or whether they are more
closely related to snakes and lizards. Dr
Terri Cleary from the Museum of
Birmingham explained the problem: “They
probably originate from some sort of reptile
that gradually expanded its ribs out and
those became its shell. But we don't have
that many informative transitional fossils.”7

Turtles share common ancestry with dinosaurs.

9. Chickens

The evolutionary link between dinosaurs

and birds is well established, even within
the not-always-scientifically-accurate world
of Jurassic Park. A more recent discovery is
that one particular dinosaur – the T. rex –
shares some fundamental molecular
structures with the common chicken.

In 2003, Jack Horner and Mary Schweitzer

were attempting to extract a giant fossilized
T. rex femur from a dig and had to break the
bone in half to do so.8 Inside, they found
molecules of the structural protein collagen,
which takes different forms in different
animals, acting as a kind of protein
fingerprint. As there was no other dinosaur
collagen to work with, they cross-
referenced the Tyrannosaur collagen with
modern day animals, including humans,
mice and salmon. The closest match was
found in chickens and ostriches – two
species that have surprisingly little in
common, genetically speaking – with
alligators coming in third.

The T rex shares some fundamental molecular structures

with the common chicken.

10. Snakes

If any animal deserves to be called a terrible

lizard, it’s a snake. They have populated our
nightmares for so long and taken a central
role in our phobic mythologies. Even Harry
Potter’s villainous Voldemort has a snake as
a pet. There is, as the Beatles might put it,
something in the way they move.

The snake is another species that evolved to

how we know it today by getting rid of key
assets – most notably legs, and several
bones in the skull that prevented total
mobility.9 The Creta-ceous-era marine
squamate Pachyrhachis problematicus (as
described by Michael Caldwell and Michael
Lee in Nature) can be considered a
primitive snake.10 It has an elapine slender
body and mobile skull with extra joints for
larger prey, but also a working pelvis and
hind limbs.

Oh, and if you didn’t already find snakes

creepy enough, consider this: because they
have such narrow bodies, snakes have
arranged their kidneys one in front of the
oth-er, rather than side by side. For the
same reason, snakes either predominantly
favour the right lung over the le, or get by
with just the one. Sleep tight!

So, the next time you find yourself watching

Chris Pratt trying to do his Velociraptor-
whisperer act in Jurassic World, consider
how much more realistic it might be to have
him face down three angry emus, or a
crocodile with a grudge.

We are walking with dinosaurs all the time

and we should continue to be both grate-ful
and amazed that this continues to be the
case.