Scientists Reconstruct the Evolutionary Dawn of Dinosaurs and Reptiles

Across the deep archive of fossil stone and living DNA, researchers have reconstructed the branching pathways that carried the earliest reptiles toward the extraordinary diversity of dinosaurs and their kin. Using computational methods that reconcile ancient bones with molecular signals in living species, scientists have traced the slow, adaptive unfolding of a lineage that still walks the Earth today. The work reminds us that evolution is not a series of dramatic leaps but a patient accumulation of small answers to the pressures of survival — and that the creatures of the present are never tr