Planet of the Aves: First Steps
On our own world, following the fall of the dinosaurs, mammals became the dominant class. This was caused by a cluster of factors, such as the rapidly changing temperatures and their ability to adapt. No matter how they became the dominant life forms, they are; this makes me wonder could birds become the dominant class?
I mean obviously it is possible, but surely there are ways that I can increase the odds of birds becoming dominant, or even guarantee it. What evolutionary environments would help guarantee birds become the dominant class?
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The meteor missed. The end-cretaceous mass extinction event didn't happen. Velociraptors and their friends lived on. They continued to evolve, to be large, and to eat whatever they wanted.
We now understand that late "dinosaurs" were very close to birds. They had feathers, hopped on two legs, and maybe even made sounds closer to chirps and eagle-cries than to Hollywood roars. In fact, even though we call both T-Rex and Stegosaurus "dinosaurs," A T-Rex has more in common with a modern sparrow, and lived closer in time to a sparrow, than to a stegosaurus. (Yes, this is an xkcd reference).
Clearly, at least a few things survived the end-cretaceous[citation needed] and became what we call birds. Had more things survived, and carried on as they were, they would have remained dominant. Mammals would have been kept in check and never got past being tiny rodent-like things scurrying around in burrows. The alt-world avians of today might not look exactly like real-world birds, but would be very close. And they would totally rule!
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/51488. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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