The Great Survivors: Aves

For 169 million years the world was dominated by dinosaurs. During that time mammals were mostly the size of a rat, with few exceptions reaching fox or cat-size. Mammals were relegated to opportunistically survive under the feet of the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs occupied all the main natural habitats that mammals dominate today (except the waters).

65 million years ago a series of catastrophic events, including the strike of an asteroid, virtually destroyed Earth’s climate. The sudden change was too much to bear for species larger than a small crocodile or a fox. The big dinosaurs were all wiped out. But well before the asteroid struck, Dinosaurs had already evolved a strategy to take over and populate a niche that was previously the exclusive domain of insects and pterosaurs (flying reptiles): the air!

Tens of thousands of species of Birds have flourished ever since and represent the last surviving dinosaurs. Their feathers have taken them far beyond the brink of extinction... Dinosaurs are the flying winners in the evolutionary race.