Exactly how did birds evolve from dinosaurs ? It’s a mystery that has been with us for more than 150 years, and palaeontologists are still hunting for pieces of the puzzle today. Among them is the University of Edinburgh’s Professor Steve Brusatte, whose latest book, The Story of Birds, tells the whole fascinating story. We caught up with him recently to find out more. Of all the great dinosaur subjects, why this story? I’ve always been fascinated by birds . They are all around us and there’s such a stunning diversity and variety. As a palaeontologist I specialised early in the theropod (two-legged) dinosaurs. This is the group that includes T.rex and Velociraptor – and gave rise to birds. The more I studied theropods, the more I became more curious about the modern-day animals that descended from them. Back in the early 2010s my PhD was about the origin of birds .…