Your first paragraph reminded me of an Ignobel-awarded article, "Chickens prefer beautifl humans": http://cogprints.org/5272/1/ghirlanda_jansson_enquist2002.pd...

BTW, I think all birds descend from dinosaurs. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird: "Paleontologists regard birds as the only clade of dinosaurs to have survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 65.5 Ma (million years) ago."