Mammals and birds might have a distinct advantage when it comes to adapting to a world transformed by climate change, according to new research.
That's because warm-blooded animals are better able to adapt and find suitable living conditions as ecosystems shift.
The researchers combined data from current habitat distribution, fossil records and genetic information for more than 11 thousand species. With that information, scientists could tell where animals lived over the past 270 million years.
For instance, about 40 million years ago there was a shift as the world cooled. Birds and mammals seem to have done pretty well for themselves as that happened. Reptiles and amphibians, not so much.
