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Scientists reconstruct genome of common ancestor of crocodiles, birds, dinosaurs


December 11, 2014

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Crocodiles are the closest living relatives of birds, sharing a common ancestor that lived around 240 million years ago and also gave rise to the dinosaurs. A new study of crocodilian genomes reveals an exceptionally slow rate of genome evolution in this group. The researchers used the crocodilian genomes, combined with newly published bird genomes, to reconstruct a partial genome of the common ancestor of crocodiles, birds and dinosaurs.Full Story

Source
University of California, Santa Cruz

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