Birds evolved from terrestrial dinosaurs. Ostriches are genetically closest birds to alligators and crocodiles.
"Birds evolved from a group of meat-eating dinosaurs called theropods. That's the same group that Tyrannosaurus rex belonged to, although birds evolved from small theropods, not huge ones like T. rex. The oldest bird fossils are about 150 million years old" (https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/why-are-birds-the-only-surviving-dinosaurs.html ). "Birds belong to the theropod group of dinosaurs that included T. rex. Theropods are all bipedal and some of them share more bird-like features than others. Archaeopteryx, discovered in 1861, was for a long time the only truly bird-like dinosaur – it's from the Late Jurassic era (150 million years ago)" (https://www.birdlife.org/news/2021/12/21/its-official-birds-are-literally-dinosaurs-heres-how-we-know/ ). "For dinosaurs, there is a hole in the hip bones which is circled and labeled “hole”, and a thin line on the arm bone labeled “crest”. For pterosaurs, there is no hole in the hip bones, the same area of which is circled and labeled “no hole” and the arm bone is smooth and circled and labeled “no crest”.]" (https://www.amnh.org/explore/videos/dinosaurs-and-fossils/why-isn-t-pterodactyl-a-dinosaur ).
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