Archaeopteryx

genus of early bird-like dinosaur

Archaeopteryx is one of the most important fossils ever discovered. It is a flying dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic, about 150 million years ago. It shows the evolutionary link between non-avian theropod dinosaurs and birds, but it is not the ancestor of modern birds.[2]

Archaeopteryx
Temporal range: Late Jurassic (Tithonian), 150.8–148.5 Ma
Fossil of complete Archaeopteryx, including indentations of feathers on wings and tail
The Berlin Archaeopteryx specimen (A. siemensii).
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Clade: Theropoda
Clade: Paraves
Family: Archaeopterygidae
Genus: Archaeopteryx
Meyer, 1861
(conserved name)
Type species
Archaeopteryx lithographica
Meyer, 1861 (conserved name)
Referred species
  • A. siemensii
    Dames, 1897
  • A. albersdoerferi
    Kundrat et al., 2018
Synonyms[1]
Genus synonymy
  • Griphosaurus
    Wagner, 1862 (rejected name)
  • Griphornis
    Woodward, 1862 (rejected name)
  • Archaeornis
    Petronievics, 1917
  • Jurapteryx
    Howgate, 1984
  • Wellnhoferia?
    Elżanowski, 2001
Species synonymy
  • Griphosaurus problematicus
    Wagner, 1862 vide Woodward 1862 nomen rejectum
  • Griphornis longicaudatus
    Owen 1862 vide Woodward 1862 nomen rejectum
  • Griphosaurus longicaudatus
    (Owen 1862 vide Woodward 1862) Owen 1862 vide Brodkorb 1863 nomen rejectum
  • Archaeopteryx macrura
    Owen, 1862 (rejected name)
  • Archaeopteryx siemensii?
    (Dames, 1897)
  • Archaeornis siemensii
    (Dames, 1897) Peteronievics vide Petroneivics & Woodward 1917
  • Archaeopteryx owenii
    Petronievics, 1917 (rejected name)
  • Archaeopteryx recurva
    Howgate, 1984
  • Jurapteryx recurva
    (Howgate, 1984) Howgate 1985
  • Archaeopteryx bavarica
    Wellnhofer, 1993
  • ?Wellnhoferia grandis
    Elżanowski, 2001
The London specimen (cast)

The first Archaeopteryx was found in 1860 near Solnhofen in Bavaria, Germany. Today, ten skeletons and one feather of Archaeopteryx have been found.[3]

Archaeopteryx was a small carnivorous dinosaur with feathers and wings. It had a mouth with teeth, claws on the hands and a long tail. Today, it is known that dromaeosaurs, and possibly most other extinct theropods, looked like birds and that many had feathers. When they are born, today's South American hoatzin have claws on their wings when they are young, just like Archaeopteryx.

Analysis change

Thomas Henry Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog"), who was a comparative anatomist, made a study of this nearly 150 years ago. He compared Archaeopteryx with a small theropod dinosaur, Compsognathus. Both of the fossils came from the same place: Solnhofen in Bavaria, Germany. The strata come from the end of the Jurassic period, about 144 million years ago. He showed that both were very similar except for the front limbs and feathers of Archaeopteryx.[4] E.D. Cope also came to the same conclusion.[5]

Huxley's study showed the basic relationship between birds and reptiles. He united them under the title of Sauropsida. His papers on Archaeopteryx and the origin of birds have been of great interest ever since. Huxley concluded that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs.[6][7]

Status today change

Archaeopteryx used to be considered the first bird. Nowadays, it is not the only fossil of a bird-like dinosaur. A similar species called Anchiornis huxlei lived from 160 to 155 million years ago.[8] It had feathers on both front and rear legs, and could probably glide. It may or may not have had some ability to fly. This discovery means we cannot say Archaeopteryx is the first known bird, but its contribution to science has been huge. We now know for sure that a whole group of small theropod dinosaurs had feathers, and that flight was a later, secondary, use of feathers. The first use of feathers was temperature regulation, and probably also signalling (see Epidexipteryx).

Many scientists nowadays do not consider Archaeopteryx a true bird (=a member of the lineage Aves). They only consider it a relative of birds. This classification does not reflect a different evolutionary hypothesis, it simply defines Aves (birds) less broadly.[9]

Directly ancestral or not? change

It may be that Archaeopteryx is not directly ancestral to modern birds, but it is still a fine transitional fossil.

"Archaeopteryx, for example, is not necessarily directly ancestral to birds. It may have been a species on a side-branch. However, that in no way disqualifies it as a transitional form, or as evidence for evolution. Evolution predicts that such fossils will exist, and if there was no link between reptiles and birds then Archaeopteryx would not exist, whether it is directly ancestral or not".[10]

Related pages change

Further reading change

  • Chambers P. 2002. Bones of contention: the fossil that shook science. London: John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-6059-4
  • Shipman P. 1998. Taking wing: Archaeopteryx and the evolution of bird flight. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-84156-4

References change

  1. "Troodontidae Gilmore, 1924". theropoddatabase.com. Archived from the original on 3 April 2019.
  2. Benton M.J. 2015. Vertebrate palaeontology. Wiley Blackwell ISBN 978-1-118-40684-7, p. 274.
  3. Mayr, Gerald et al 2007. The tenth skeletal specimen of Archaeopteryx. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 149 (1), 97–116. [1]
  4. Huxley T.H. 1868. On the animals which are most nearly intermediate between birds and reptiles. Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 4th series. 2: 66–75.
  5. Cope E.D. 1867. An account of the extinct reptiles which approached the birds. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 19: 234–235.
  6. Paul G. 2002. Dinosaurs of the Air, the evolution and loss of flight in dinosaurs and birds. p171–224 Johns Hopkins, Baltimore. ISBN 0-8018-6763-0
  7. Foster, Michael and Lankester, E. Ray (eds )1898–1903. The scientific memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley. 4 vols and supplement, Macmillan, London ISBN 1432640119
  8. Hu D.; et al. (2009), "A pre-Archaeopteryx troodontid theropod from China with long feathers on the metatarsus", Nature, 461 (7264): 640–643, Bibcode:2009Natur.461..640H, doi:10.1038/nature08322, PMID 19794491, S2CID 205218015
  9. Gauthier, J. & de Queiroz, K. 2001. Feathered dinosaurs, flying dinosaurs, crown dinosaurs, and the name "Aves". pp. 7–41. In Gauthier, J. & Gall, L.F. (eds.) New Perspectives on the Origin and Early Evolution of Birds: Proceedings of the International Symposium in Honor of John H. Ostrom. New Haven: Peabody Museum of Natural History. ISBN 0-912532-57-2 hdl: 10088/4690  
  10. Theunissen, Lionel 1997. TalkOrigins Archive