Dino-birds
Who are the ancestor of birds ?
Dinosaurs !
And in consequence...Do you realize that you have certainely ever eat a descendant of dino... last week, when you have ordered a chicken curry... Surprised ?
Microraptor zhaoianus (see the article of Eric BUFFETAUT)
It becomes largely accepted that the ancestors of birds are Dinosaurs, and more particularly Theropoda (bipedal predatory dinosaurs).
This tree shows the phylogeny of the Coelurosauria (included in Tetanurae, Theropoda, Dinosauria), according to Sereno, 1999. The evolution of dinosaurs, Science 284:2137-2147.
Archeopteryx are the first knowed birds. The Neornithes are current birds.
A recent book shows ligthening elements to understand how birds can be descendants of dinosaurs. Click on that picture to see the book web page :
Feduccia have supported another hypothesis, according to which birds evolved from basal archosaurs (Feduccia, 1999, The orgin and evolution of birds).
Jones, T. D. et al. (2000) have interpreted Longisquama's (archausaur from the Late Triassic of central Asia) elongate integumentary appendages as nonavian feathers and suggests that they are probably homologous with avian feathers.
According to Prum, R. O. (2003), Feduccia can no longer deny the conclusive evidence that basal dromaeosaurs had feathers (Xu et al. 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003; Czerkas et al. 2002; Norell et al. 2002).
The presence of well-developed wing and tail feather sheets indicates a precocial developmental mode, supporting the hypothesis that precocial birds appeared before altricial birds (Zhou and Zhang, 2004).
Others publications on that subject :
Counting the fingers of Birds and Dinosaurs?
Lung Structure and Ventilation in Theropod Dinosaurs and Early Birds
Four-winged dinosaurs from China
Review :