Why bird-brain T.rex might've been smarter than previously thought

In films, TV and stories, the Tyrannosaurus rex is often shown as a powerful, but not very bright dinosaur. Now, scientists are asking a new question: could they have been smarter than we think?

Researchers are studying modern birds to find clues.

Birds are actually living dinosaurs - one of the few groups that survived after a huge asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago.

Because scientists cannot test a real T. rex, they are looking at fossils instead. By studying the shape of dinosaur skulls and brains, they hope to spot features linked to intelligence in birds.

Some birds today can solve problems, use tools, and even show simple forms of empathy.

For example, experiments suggest emus can recognise other birds might have different feelings to themselves.

"We can't put T. rex through those tests," said Prof Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh.

"But if there are some distinctive features of the brain that maybe tell you with 95% confidence that the animal with that kind of brain is capable of that kind of behaviour today, then we can at least make predictions about these fossils."

In his book, The Story of Birds, Brusatte explains that birds evolved slowly from small, meat-eating dinosaurs over millions of years.

Birds are "real, true dinosaurs" says Brusatte.

"It's not like a T rex mutated into a chicken one day," he adds. Instead, evolution happened step by step.

Early bird relatives didn't even fly at first. Feathers may have started as a way to keep warm, before later helping with movement in the air. Over time, some dinosaurs became small enough and developed wings strong enough to glide and eventually fly.

When the asteroid struck, most dinosaurs died out, but some early birds survived.

"There was a whole fantastic aviary of birds flapping and fluttering overhead of T. rex and Triceratops until the asteroid hit," says Brusatte. "All of those birds then died. Except for the modern-style birds."

The lucky survivors were able to live on the ground, grow quickly and eat seeds, which helped them cope when forests disappeared.

Today's birds still carry dinosaur traits in their bodies and DNA.

As Brusatte notes, a six-day-old quail embryo has hips that resemble those of dinosaurs such as T. rex.

What's more, by tinkering with the genes of a chicken inside its egg, scientists can even trigger the development of teeth - showing that this ancient genetic code has been preserved for millions of years.

Scientists hope that by understanding birds better, they can uncover what life - and maybe even intelligence - was like for dinosaurs such as T. rex too.

"Birds are survivors. They are adaptable, they evolve quickly, they change quickly," says Brusatte.

"When they are confronted with a crisis, maybe not all of them make it through, but some of them do, and they can repopulate really quickly. That is the story of the asteroid. They were the only dinosaurs to survive."