Question: What is the closest animals living to the extinct dinorsaurs?

Charlotte Brassey answered on 12 Jun 2012:

Modern birds really are living dinosaurs. Birds evolved from a lineage of dinosaurs called the ‘non-avian theropods’, basically the meat-eating dinosaurs that walked on 2 legs! Palaeontologist consider the first bird to be Archaeopteryx, which has some features of a dinosaur (long lizard tail, and sharp teeth) and also features of a bird (feathered wings, and a claw for perching on branches).

Birds evolved from dinosaurs quite a while before the famous ‘extinction event’. The big dinosaurs suffered most once the meteorite hit, perhaps because they needed more food or because they were cold blooded. But warm-blooded birds and mammals managed to survive and take over the roles previously filled by dinosaurs.