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(i) Feathers in some ancient reptiles like dinosaurs, as fossils indicate, evolved to provide insulation in cold weather. However, they cannot fly with these feathers later on birds adapted the feathers to flight. This means that birds are very closely related to reptiles, since dinosaurs were reptile.

(ii) Another method to find out how close two species are in evolutionary terms is by comparing the DNA of different species. It provides direct estimate of how much the DNA has changed during the formation of the new species.