Did humans kill off the last dinosaur?

Classic dinosaurs went extinct long before humans existed. But birds are dinosaurs, and birds still exist. So, no.

But birds are not classic dinosaurs mainly because they are not extinct (a tautology) and they are not big and scary. But some of them were.

One of the last (but not the last) big scary bird-dinosaur creatures may have gone extinct because humans ate them, or more likely, ate their eggs. In Australia. Perhaps.

Anyway, I wrote this new finding up here, at 10,000 birds.

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Generally, wings and a beak make the difference between what we call a dinosaur and what we call a bird. That's why the Archeoptryx is considered "transitional". By that standard, these were large birds, and not nearly as scary as some of the other large birds that have existed.

By tonylurker (not verified) on 19 Feb 2016 #permalink

^Yep/. That'd be my understanding too - along with feathers which okay it now seems a lot of dinosaurs also had.

Great article. Shared. Thanks.

Misleading headline though - I like your actual article one "DID HUMANS KILL OFF ONE OF THE LAST DINOSAURS, ER, GIANT BIRDS?" Much better. Much more accurate, sorry.