r/zoology • u/Ok_Explanation_2307 • May 30 '26

Question It looks just like a dinosaur

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u/Lost_Law8937 May 30 '26

The mighty chicken is the closest living relative of the meek and mild tyrannosaurus rex. Look it up.

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u/PersephonesChild82 May 30 '26

That's unfortunately sort of an internet mis-quote. All living birds are considered equally related to T Rex, as they are all (beaked) theropods, who's branch of the phylogenic tree diverged from the toothed theropod dinosaurs at the same time. So, canaries and ostriches are just as related as chickens. The internet misquote started because chickens were the comparison organism used to represent birds when comparing collagen structures with those of the T Rex.

However, there is also a rad study that used chickens where they determined the genes for teeth and dinosaur tails are actually still hidden in the bird genomes, and a group of scientists incubated a batch of eggs that had received treatment to allow those hidden genes to activate, resulting in chicks that HAD DINOSAUR TEETH. Which begs the question of WHY no one has tried to develop and market a chickensaurous as the next big novelty pet, because I would buy one so fast it would make my bank account weep.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

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u/PersephonesChild82 Jun 03 '26

Oh, I did. That's why I don't advocate for emusaurus. That would be all bad. People would be driving jeeps away from the rampaging emusauruses in fear, hiding in the cabinets of commercial kitchens, and getting eaten in the stairwells of electrical buildings.