Steve Brusatte on the evolution of birds and their dinosaur origins

Steve Brusatte, the American palaeontologist and consultant on several Jurassic Park films, will return to the Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2027 to discuss how birds evolved from dinosaurs. In an interview with Firstpost, he talks about his new book, the intelligence of birds, their extraordinary ancestors and the discoveries that continue to reshape our understanding of their evolution.

Steve Brusatte's first encounter with dinosaurs came in childhood, when his six-year-old younger brother built a dinosaur museum at their home near Chicago, filling it with posters and books. Brusatte was not particularly interested at first, but his brother's enthusiasm gradually wore him down, sparking a fascination with dinosaurs and fossils.

More than three decades later, Brusatte is one of the world's leading palaeontologists, known for discovering new dinosaur species and researching their evolution. A member of the faculty at the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, he has written best-selling books including The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World (2018) and The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us (2022). He has also consulted on films including Walking with Dinosaurs (2013), Jurassic World Dominion (2022) and Jurassic World Rebirth (2025).

His latest book, The Story of Birds: A New History from Their Dinosaur Origins to the Present, was published in April 2026. Brusatte, among the speakers announced for the 20th Jaipur Literature Festival, speaks to Firstpost about birds and their evolution. Excerpts from the interview.

You spoke about dinosaurs at your first appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2025. What will you discuss in 2027?

I am excited to return to Jaipur. My visit in 2025 was my first time in India, and I was mesmerised by both the country and the festival. It was one of my favourite experiences as a writer.

This year, I will talk about one peculiar group of dinosaurs: birds. They are the only dinosaurs that live on today. I want to explain this idea and explore what birds have done over 150 million years of evolution and adaptation.

What went into writing The Story of Birds?

I am a scientist-writer and a research palaeontologist. I teach and manage a lab at the University of Edinburgh, and I wrote the book from the perspective of a scientist who has dug up dinosaur fossils and studied the evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and birds.

The book tells how birds evolved from small dinosaurs, developed feathers and wings, took to the skies and survived the asteroid impact that killed the other dinosaurs. I also include stories from my research and discoveries, as well as the history of how palaeontologists first proposed that birds evolved from dinosaurs. It is a popular science book for general readers rather than an academic textbook.

Did you travel to India for the research?

No. When I first visited India for the Jaipur festival in 2025, I was nearly finished with the first draft. But I do mention some remarkable birds from India, including ostriches. I think it is wild that ostriches once lived in India!

How did scientists establish that birds evolved from dinosaurs?

The idea goes back to the 1860s, when Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's friend and supporter, recognised similarities between birds and reptiles. The discovery of Archaeopteryx in Germany was particularly important. It had feathered wings but also teeth and large claws on its hands, suggesting a link between birds and dinosaurs.

The evidence grew stronger in the 1990s, when farmers in China began finding dinosaur skeletons covered in feathers. Birds belong to the dinosaur family tree, just as bats belong to the mammal family tree. They are a specialised group of dinosaurs that became small, developed wings and began to fly. Unlike bats, however, they are the only members of their larger group still alive today.

Are birds as intelligent as mammals?

When I was growing up in America, calling someone a 'bird brain' was an insult. It is a very unfair one. Birds are intelligent, and their brains are large relative to their body size.

Some birds can recognise themselves in mirrors, plan ahead and make tools from sticks and wire. Crows, ravens, magpies and parrots are among the cleverest animals alive today.

How have birds influenced human culture?

Birds have long inspired people through their beautiful plumage, with feathers of so many shapes and colours. Many cultures have used feathers in religious and spiritual ceremonies and in elaborate clothing. Birds also possess something humans have always longed for: the ability to break free from the Earth and soar into the heavens.

What are scientists still trying to discover about bird evolution?

Palaeontologists around the world are searching for fossils of the oldest birds and their closest dinosaur relatives. Scientists in China have recently announced the discovery of a Jurassic bird that lived about 150 million years ago.

We have fossil sites on the Isle of Skye in Scotland that are about 170 million years old. Some preserve small, delicate bones. If birds were flying around then, we might find their remains there. They could turn out to be the oldest bird fossils ever discovered.

What makes birds' songs so remarkable?

Birds have a specialised vocal organ called the syrinx, located where the windpipe meets the lungs. It can produce a remarkable range of sounds. Some birds can even make two sounds simultaneously, one from each side of the organ. It is like a person speaking English and Bengali at the same time.

Some birds learn songs from a tutor and go through a babbling stage, much like a human toddler learning to speak. Their songs are remarkable examples of vocal learning.

Your book describes elephant birds, demon ducks and enormous soaring birds. What were these creatures like?

There are more than 10,000 living bird species, roughly twice the number of mammal species. But many extraordinary birds are now extinct.

Terror birds were once top predators in South America. Taller than humans, they had enormous heads and sharp beaks. They occupied the apex-predator role that dinosaurs such as T. rex had held before the asteroid impact.

Elephant birds in Madagascar weighed up to 800 kilograms and laid eggs the size of watermelons. Demon ducks in Australia weighed about 100 times as much as a modern goose. These birds could not fly; losing flight allowed them to grow large and occupy new ecological niches.

Some flying birds were enormous, too. Pelagornithids had wingspans exceeding six metres and soared on air currents, sometimes barely needing to flap their wings. They survived for more than 60 million years before disappearing a few million years ago, around the time modern humans were beginning to evolve.