Did the dinosaurs evolve into birds or crocodiles...or both?

Question

I live in Florida. I've seen Sand Hill Cranes up close. If you look at a Sand Hill Crane, you can SEE that they look like dinosaurs! But crocodiles and alligators have been around for 200 million years or more too. There was a late Cretaceous crocodile, Sarchosuchus Riograndensis, that was 80 feet long! So which are the true descendants of the "terrible lizards," birds or crocodilians...or both? Evolution has branched off many times. It could just as likely have done so after the age of dinosaurs.

Answer 1

Archaeopteryx has characteristics of birds and dinosaurs, not birds and reptiles - if we don't count dinosaurs as reptiles.

One of the huge differences between the reptiles - crocodiles and lizards - and the dinosaurs is their legs. Reptile legs come out sideways and the body hangs between the legs. Dinosaurs, like mammals and birds, sit on top of their legs. The pelvis and shoulders are entirely different from those of reptiles.

This means in evolutionary terms that once dinosaurs had evolved their type of pelvis, they would not revert to the reptilean pelvis. Reptiles branched off from a very early common ancestor with the dinosaurs and went their separate way.

The only descendents of dinosaurs alive today are the birds. The tuatara is a reptile whose ancestors were reptiles 225million years ago. It has remained essentially unchanged for 80million years but it is a contemporary of the dinosaurs, not a dinosaur.

Answer 2

There were four branches of Dinosaurs. Mammals evolved from a line that broke from Reptiles before Dinosaurs, and all but one reptile alive today evolved from other non-dinosaur reptiles

Only Birds came from one branch of Dinosaurs, the only other creature that has evolved from Dinosaurs is a lizard looking critter in New Zealand called a Tuatara, that evolved from a different branch, the other two branches are completely extinct.

Answer 3

Crocodiles are a throwback to the Dinosaurs and have changed little in that time.

Birds are probably more closely related to Dinosaurs then modern day reptiles, similar bone structure, warm-blooded (to walk on two legs dinosaurs would have had to be warm-blooded).

Answer 4

Both, but the brird's skeleton is very similar to dinosaurs so birds are technically direct dinosaur descendents

Answer 5

The answer has to be both. There was a dinosaur named Archaeopteryx which was an intermediate stage between reptiles like crocodiles and birds like cranes nearly 15 crores of years agon.It had characteristics of both birds and reptiles.It had a beak(char. of bird) with teeth(char. of reptiles).It had wings(char. of birds) with a long tail(char. of reptiles). This shows that dinosaurs did evolve into birds and reptiles.


REGARDS

Answer 6

The crocodilians are an old branch of Archosaurs that predates the dinosaurs.

Answer 7

we don't know for certain, but birds may be closer relatives. as pointed out in jurassic park, velociraptors have similar bone structures and the word "raptor" even means "bird of prey". but that doesn't mean that crocs didn't evolve from dinosaurs, it just might mean that they birds aren't the only decendants

Answer 8

Do you mean do they share genes?
Maybe. Can't say though, the dino's have yet to be genotyped.

Answer 9

Both, + Komodo Dragons.

Answer 10

both of them