Earlier dinos were like lizards but as the raptors evolved, they became feathered animals. One line of dinos stayed reptilian and another line evolved into birds. When one looks at the whole line of dino like animals from the beginning of the age of dinos on, it is an amazing walk through evolution, just like watching the four legged mammals evolve into two legged/two armed long tailed monkies and then into the tailess ape which leads to the two legged austrailopithicines and onto true homo species.
The dinos, who did that small to large, then four leg to two leg journey before the mammals show the trial and error path of evolution much better than that of the mammals. I am always amazed and facenated by the march of the dinos through all the different body styles and sizes and then the abrupt appearance of the two legged dinos and their further charge into the raptors. Just amazing, specialized dead end animals coming out on some of the family trees; but the raptor tree never actually ends except at the mass extinction boundary; with the proto birds continuing on with the new mammals, old and new reptiles and amphibians and the insects, fishes and the like.
Just an absolutely amazing march or life across the eons of our world with an astounding ninety nine point nine percent of all species that have ever lived on the earth turning into an extinct species leaving what we see today. Is it any reason I worship Gaia, Mother Earth, the bringer of all known life (at present).
There is a science fiction writer who posited another life form living in the universe, more advanced than us mammals who are actually reptilian in evolution. This writer opens his book with the reptilian race invading earth at the beginning of the second world war; and due to the reptilians more advanced technology, they conqueor us easily: but we eventually win back a lot of the earth for ourselves because the mammalian evolution created a more adaptable creature with faster and more flexible thinking patterns than those of the reptilians. Just an amazing series of books who start with the initial invasion about two years into the beginning of the second world war and the last book I know about started with humans building their own space ships and going to the reptilian homeworld to negotiate with them for equality in space exporation and colony foundation. Very interesting ideas and concepts and also gave the writer the freedom to posit on how a reptilian government would evolve, how and why it would succeed and whether or not it could actually compete with the mammalian race after the technological quality became a factor. Loved those books. Now all I have to do is remember the author's name so I can see if I can get them from Amazon on my Kindle!
