As many youngsters enthralled by dinosaurs know, 66 million years ago a big meteor hit the Earth and killed all the dinosaurs.  

Much to those kids’ regret, Tyrannosaurs, Brontosaurs, Triceratops, and all the rest are all gone forever.  

But that is not quite the whole story.  

Not all the dinosaurs are gone.  We still have dinosaurs living among us today!  

When that big meteor hit the Earth, the world’s climate got pretty nasty.  The meteor was big – so big that when it hit in southern Mexico, it left a crater more than 100 miles wide.  

From that crater, a wave of heated air – 500 degrees! – spread out over the entire surface of the Earth.  

No animal could survive that.  No plant could survive that.  Life on the Earth’s surface was wiped out.  But life below the surface or protected by rocks was another matter.

Smaller animals that lived underground, or which were in nests underground, or which had time to find shelter in rocky crevasses survived.  Turtles, crocodiles, and other animals which could stay underwater in streams and rivers survived.

But after things cooled back down, what was there left to eat?  Many of the remaining animals starved.

The plants were gone – burned up.  Some dinosaurs were plant-eaters, like Brontosaurus.  Some dinosaurs ate the plant eaters, like Tyrannosaurus Rex.  For plant eaters and for meat-eaters that had somehow managed to survive the heat, there was not enough food.

But plenty of seeds had survived.  

Soon after that giant heat wave, the Earth cooled back down.  The seeds sprouted and grew.  Plant life returned, and made its way back into the world.

Smaller animals that ate seeds, and later the plants, could still find food; they survived.    And small meat-eaters could eat the small plant-eaters; they survived.

Those plants and animals that survived were the foundation from which life on Earth recovered and was reborn.  All life in today’s world descends from those small survivors of that massive cataclysm 66 million years ago.

While most dinosaurs had teeth to eat plants or to eat meat, a third group of dinosaurs, instead of teeth, had beaks.

For eating seeds, beaks are much better than teeth.  So those small dinosaurs who could hide from that terrible heat that had beaks could and did survive during the time when seeds were pretty much the only food to be found.

Those small dinosaurs with beaks also had wings.  

Long before the discovery of dinosaur fossils, people called those animals with beaks and wings “birds”.  

Even after the discovery of dinosaurs, biologists failed to realize the connection.  That revelation has only occurred in the last few decades.

Birds are dinosaurs.

Feed the dinosaurs:  when you put out a bird-feeder, think of it as a dinosaur-feeder, because that is what it is.

When a meal includes chicken – or turkey, or quail, or any other bird – dinosaur is the meat that is on the menu for that meal!

“Hey kids!  Let’s have dinosaur for dinner tonight!”

Imagine going to “Dino-fil-A” or “Kentucky Fried Dinosaur” for some fried dinosaur.  Imagine watching a football game while eating “dinosaur wings”!

“Hey, Mom!  Let’s have dinosaur tonight!”

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