1996年，中国辽宁的一位农民在挖掘时发现了一块奇特的化石，后来被命名为"中华龙鸟"——这是人类第一次在恐龙身上发现羽毛的痕迹。这个发现震惊了整个古生物学界，因为在此之前，人们一直以为恐龙全身覆盖的是鳞片，跟羽毛完全不沾边。

In 1996, a farmer in Liaoning, China, discovered a strange fossil while digging, later named Sinosauropteryx, this was the first time humanity found evidence of feathers on a dinosaur. The discovery shocked the entire paleontology community, because until then, everyone had assumed dinosaurs were covered entirely in scales, with nothing to do with feathers at all.

现在科学家已经有了明确共识：鸟类其实就是恐龙的直系后代，准确来说是从一类叫"兽脚类"的恐龙演化而来的——霸王龙也属于兽脚类恐龙。换句话说，你窗外那只叽叽喳喳的小麻雀，血缘上真的是恐龙的后代，恐龙从未真正灭绝，只是变成了会飞的样子，活到了今天。

Scientists now have a clear consensus: birds are actually direct descendants of dinosaurs, more precisely, they evolved from a group called theropods, the same group Tyrannosaurus rex belongs to. In other words, that little chirping sparrow outside your window is genuinely, by blood, a descendant of dinosaurs, dinosaurs never truly went extinct, they simply took on a flying form and are still living today.

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