Here are some links between dinosaurs and birds: Modern birds, like chickens, have only 5-8 vertebrae in their tails. Dinosaurs had somewhere around 35 vertebrae in their tails. When we look at chicken embryos, they have tails with 16 vertebrae before they fully develop and lose most of their vertebrae. This is around the same number of vertebra found in Archaeopteryx, the transitional animal between dinosaurs and birds. (However, some people have recently argued that it might be a different bird-like dinosaur that is the transitional animal between dinosaurs and birds, but scientists aren’t sure about this. This is brand new information, so we’ll stand by what scientists have believed up until this theory was proposed, especially since this is the information I got about this subject in the documentary I watched about this.) Also, one mutated chicken was found to have teeth, which means chickens have the genes to make teeth. However, in most chickens, that gene is turned off, since most chickens do not have teeth. But in some mutated chickens, that gene is turned on, meaning that that gene still exists in chickens from their ancestors. When animals carry a gene, that gene remains in its descendants, even if the gene is turned off, and the descendants don’t usually show that gene. The teeth we found in this mutated chicken are just like teeth found in some carnivorous dinosaurs. These teeth were found to be curved like those of dinosaurs, suggesting that dinosaurs are the ancestors of chickens. Finally, some dinosaurs contained two hands, each with three fingers. When we take a closer look at birds, they too have two hands with three fingers, even though they are difficult to see. The dinosaurs’ hands were used for grabbing, and bird hands are highly modified for flight. However, this is a link between dinosaurs and birds. There are also some behavioral links between the two. For instance, dinosaurs and birds were/are both social, flocked, scavenged, cared for their young, and tended to their eggs. There are more links, but these are the major ones.
Now, here is the process by which we could potentially use birds to clone a modern day dinosaur: Emus have scaly feet like dinosaurs, they are large like dinosaurs, and they have feathers similar to those found on velociraptors in China. For these reasons, emus would be a perfect bird to use in order to clone modern day dinosaurs. They could potentially be "turned into" dinosaurs, in theory. It may be possible to genetically turn on the genes in emu embryos that still exist in them from their dinosaur ancestors but have been turned off. That way, the emus are born with teeth, scaly skin, etc. In this way, we create our own modern day dinosaur! And who knows what could come of it if we did this. I mean, they would go through their own evolution, and a speciation event could occur down the line, bringing about other new dinosaur-like animals. Or they could interbreed with other birds to create new species of birds. Who knows what could come of it?
Pros and cons of doing this: As for the pros, we would learn a lot about dinosaurs and birds, besides the fact that it would just be really cool to create a dinosaur. It would certainly be a huge leap for the people who accomplished the task. It would also be great for our economy and tourism, since we would, for sure, put these animals on show, and people would come from all over the world to see them, (and they'd pay lots of money.) As for the cons, I don’t think it’s ever right to put animals on show, because it’s not fair to them. Also, it would be like playing God, which would displease a lot of people. Also, we could end up putting ourselves into a situation where creating one dinosaur leads to the evolution of more dinosaurs, and then the dinosaurs overtake the world again. (This is obviously something dramatic that could happen a long time in the future after a lot of speciation events and/or interbreeding occurred.) We could potentially be putting a lot of people in danger, and maybe even the entire human race. It's possible something like what happened in Jurassic Park could occur, even though the documentary said no one is looking to make a park like in the movie. However, there's no way we, as a race, would create dinosaurs and not try to make money off of it. Everything in nature occurs for a reason, and any change in the way things work could create a butterfly effect that could change life as we know it, maybe for the better, but maybe for the worse. If we created dinosaurs, we'd have to feed them. What would they eat? It seems like the dinosaurs we're trying to create are carnivores, so they would eat other animals, which could completely disrupt all kinds of ecosystems, causing many different species of current animals to go extinct, and this includes the human race. I think everything I wrote about in my "Cons" section is enough of an explanation for my stance on whether or not it's a good idea to genetically engineer dinosaurs. While it's a really neat idea, and I'd love to live to see a real dinosaur, and while I'm usually on the side of science and education, I think the potential cons heavily outweigh the potential pros. It's just too much to risk, besides the fact that playing with nature (or God, depending on what you believe) is never a good idea. In the words of Jurassic Park’s Dr. Ian Malcolm, "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think about whether or not they should." (This was referenced in this documentary, which made me very happy, because I love that quote.) So it goes to show that even paleontologists, paleobotanists, and other scientists may not think genetically engineering dinosaurs is a good idea, no matter how interesting the idea may be.
If you’re interested in this topic and learning more about it, there is way more information and better descriptions in the documentary where I got all this information. It’s on YouTube in 5 different parts, but parts 3 and 4 are the most interesting ones. The documentary is called “Dinosaur to Bird Evolution.” You guys should check it out in your spare time. It’s very interesting!
This is an emu, which is very tall, like an ostrich. It has been compared to dinosaurs so much that it may be the first bird we try to "turn into" a dinosaur.
This is something like what Velociraptors looked like when they ruled the world. Emus resemble these guys and other kinds of raptors in many ways, physically and characteristically. Emus have been compared to raptors, and if we were to "turn" an emu into a dinosaur, they would likely resemble raptors.
This is a projected image of what an emu would looked like if we turned on its gene to produce teeth. To me, these teeth don't exactly look like carnivorous dinosaur teeth, but you get the idea. Scary little buggers, aren't they?
The first picture is of a 3 fingered dinosaur hand. The second and third pictures are of a 3 fingered bird hand. This shows one similarity between dinosaurs and birds that is difficult to see without x-rays and skeletons.
This is a chick embryo. See all the vertebrae? This is another characteristic that links birds to dinosaurs.
I don't know if this is a photoshopped picture or not, but this gives you an idea of what the mutated chicken with teeth that was found probably looked like. Dinosaurs had teeth curved backwards, similar to these.
A Jurassic Park jeep taking some scientists through a tour of the park before the park was supposed to open for tourists to see the dinosaurs on show, and for the park to do what? MAKE MONEY. This is what happened in the movie, and it would happen in reality too if we cloned dinosaurs!
A T-Rex chasing Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park. This is an example of what we DON'T want to happen in the future.
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