Ira Flatow

That's why the birds we have are smaller?

And if the seeds had survived long enough, let's say a year or two in the ground, could they have sprouted and been an additional source of food?

We have to take a quick break, but don't go away.

More on this when we get back.

I've got a speed round for you.

Okay.

Okay.

Because I know between the asteroid and now we had 66 million years of bird evolution.

And I know there are some really weird, I'm going to say weird sounding birds and scary birds.

Like let's start with this, this flashy name, the demon duck.

OK, now there's another scary sounding terror birds.

Well, speaking of big birds and next up, and I was thinking about this before when you talked about birds that about dinosaurs that had feathers and wings and just couldn't fly.

And now I heard in your book, the giant penguin.

How giant are we talking about?

Yeah, let's turn the clock ahead a little bit to more present eras.

I know you study extinctions and what comes before and after them.

And as we have been following over the years, birds are facing multiple threats.

In North America, the number of breeding birds has declined by, what, 3 billion in the past 50 years?

Yes.

Is this an extinction that we're facing, Steve?