--- title: The end of the dinosaurs, and birds as living dinosaurs — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The end of the dinosaurs, and birds as living dinosaurs», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: About 66 million years ago a rock about 10 kilometres wide, taller than Mount Everest, slammed into the sea near M --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/) [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/) / The end of the dinosaurs, and birds as… # The end of the dinosaurs, and birds as living dinosaurs Lesson 76 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/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/0/) — About 66 million years ago a rock about 10 kilometres wide, taller than Mount Everest, slammed into the sea near Mexico; dust and gas blocked the sunlight, the world went cold and dark, and about three quarters of all kinds of living things died out. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/1/) — But the dinosaurs did not all vanish: one branch of small feathered meat-eaters survived, and their great-great-grandchildren scratch for worms in the farmyard today; birds are living dinosaurs. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/2/) — Pull the wishbone after a Sunday roast and you hold a bone T. rex had too; look at a pigeon's scaly feet and sharp claws and you are looking at a dinosaur's foot. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/3/) — In cartoons the dinosaurs all die at once in one fiery bang and small furry mammals were never there; in reality the dark years did the killing, volcanoes in India were erupting too, and mammals waited in their burrows for their turn. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/4/) — About 66 million years ago an asteroid roughly 10 kilometres wide hit what is now the Yucatan coast of Mexico, making the Chicxulub crater about 180 kilometres across. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/5/) — Dust and gas from the impact blocked sunlight, plants stopped growing, the plant-eaters starved and then the meat-eaters that ate them, and about three quarters of all kinds of animals and plants died out, including all dinosaurs except birds. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/6/) — In 1980 Luis and Walter Alvarez found a clay layer all over the world rich in iridium, a metal rare on Earth but common in asteroids; below it there are dinosaur fossils, and above it none, apart from birds. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/7/) — At the same time the Deccan Traps volcanoes poured lava across India for hundreds of thousands of years, and many scientists think their gases made things harder before and after the asteroid. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/8/) — Survivors included many small mammals, birds, crocodiles, turtles, frogs, snakes and lizards, which needed less food, could hide, and ate seeds, insects or rotting plants. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/9/) — Birds evolved from small feathered meat-eating dinosaurs called theropods, the group of T. rex and Velociraptor, and there are about 11,000 kinds of bird today. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/10/) — Bird legs and feet are covered in scales, like their dinosaur ancestors; owls and grouse also have feathers on their feet for warmth. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/11/) — The wishbone is two collarbones joined together; T. rex and Velociraptor had wishbones too, long before birds flew. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/12/) — Yutyrannus, a relative of T. rex from China about 125 million years old and about 9 metres long, had long fluffy feathers; feathers first evolved for warmth and display, and only later for flying. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/14/) — Many bird bones are hollow with thin struts and connect to air sacs for breathing, which makes them light but still strong for flying; giant sauropod dinosaurs had air sacs in their bones too. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/15/) — After the dinosaurs died out, mammals spread into many new kinds, and within about 10 million years there were early bats, early whales and dog-sized early horses. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/76-end-of-the-dinosaurs-and-birds/16/) — Crocodiles survived the asteroid too, and they are closer relatives of birds than of lizards. - ← previous: [Dinosaurs: kinds, sizes and how they lived](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/75-dinosaurs-kinds-sizes-and-lives/) - next →: [Endangered animals and extinction](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/77-endangered-animals-and-extinction/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)