The Common Chicken Is Tyrannosaurus Rex's Closest Living Relative

Chickens deserve to be treated with a little more respect in light of new evidence about their terrifying ancestry.

Analysis by scientists from Harvard University and the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of a shred of 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein - along with that of 21 modern species and an extinct mastodon - confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with birds, particularly chickens and ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators.

Tyrannosaurus rex, the 'tyrant lizard,' has confirmed its place on the vertebrate family tree, thanks to the new study, which was made possible thanks to an extremely unusual Tyrannosaurus rex fossil found in 2003.