Troodontids’ status as birds may depend on your definition of “bird”, but they were certainly dinosa
Troodontids’ status as birds may depend on your definition of “bird”, but they were certainly dinosaurs. Closely related to an owl? In the grand scheme of life, sure, but I’m pretty sure this person is misinterpreting data on the similarity of the two groups’ ear structure. Troodontids and coelophysoids did have very similar body structure. “Protoavis” is probably a chimaera of non-avian theropod fossils. Crocodilians lived much earlier than Spinosaurus, and there’s a lot of evidence discounting the possibility of a close relationship between the two taxa. -- source link