--- title: Feathered dinosaurs: from Archaeopteryx to the chicken on your plate — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Feathered dinosaurs: from Archaeopteryx to the chicken on your plate», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Birds are living dinosaurs: they come from small, feathered, meat-eating dinosaurs, so the drumstick --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Feathered dinosaurs: from Archaeoptery… # Feathered dinosaurs: from Archaeopteryx to the chicken on your plate Lesson 269 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/0/) — Birds are living dinosaurs: they come from small, feathered, meat-eating dinosaurs, so the drumstick on your plate really is a dinosaur leg. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/1/) — Archaeopteryx, 150 million years old and found in Germany in 1861, had wings and feathers like a bird but teeth, claws and a bony tail like a dinosaur, just the in-between kind Darwin's idea expected. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/2/) — Since 1996 thousands of feathered dinosaurs have turned up in China, kept in fine volcanic ash, and one, Sinosauropteryx, even had a striped orange-brown tail. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/3/) — The first feathers were simple fluff like a chick's down, for warmth; later they grew bigger for showing off, and only last of all were they used to fly. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/4/) — Snap the wishbone of the Sunday chicken and you hold the same two joined collarbones that T. rex and Velociraptor had. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/5/) — Birds are living dinosaurs, descended from small feathered meat-eating dinosaurs, and there are about 11,000 kinds of birds alive today. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/6/) — Birds and many dinosaurs share hollow bones, wishbones, three-toed feet and feathers. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/7/) — Archaeopteryx, about 150 million years old, had feathered wings but also teeth, claws and a long bony tail; it was found in Germany in 1861, soon after Darwin's book. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/8/) — Thousands of feathered dinosaur fossils have been found in China since 1996, kept by fine volcanic ash; Sinosauropteryx had a striped orange-brown tail. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/9/) — In 2016 a feathered dinosaur tail was reported in amber from Myanmar, with feathers and bones kept in 3D; amber is hardened tree resin. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/10/) — The first feathers were simple threads like a chick's down; they kept animals warm, then grew bigger for show, and only later were used for flight. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/11/) — The wishbone is two collarbones joined together; T. rex and Velociraptor had one too, and birds use it like a spring when flapping. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/12/) — A chicken walks on two legs with its body level, much like small dinosaurs; when scientists stuck a fake tail on chickens, they walked even more like dinosaurs. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/13/) — The cassowary is a big flightless bird with a crest, dagger-like claws and a deep booming call, often called the living bird that looks most like a dinosaur; it can be dangerous, so people should never go close. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/14/) — Crocodiles and birds share a common ancestor, so a crocodile is a closer cousin to a sparrow than to a lizard or a gecko. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/16/) — Early birds such as Hesperornis and Ichthyornis had teeth; modern birds lost their teeth and grew light beaks, which helps them fly. - ← previous: [Raptors: the real Velociraptor, claws, feathers and film mistakes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/268-raptors-the-real-velociraptor/) - next →: [Not dinosaurs at all: pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs and Mary Anning](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/270-not-dinosaurs-pterosaurs-plesiosaurs-mosasaurs-mary-anning/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)