Word: archaeopteryx
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...more than a century, many scientists have assumed that the forefather of all birds was a pigeon-size creature that looked like a dinosaur with feathers. Now, however, the 150 million-year-old Archaeopteryx has apparently been dethroned by a specimen named Protoavis ("first bird"), which lived 75 million years before Archaeopteryx. Last week's announcement was based on two fragmentary fossil skeletons found in the arid badlands of western Texas in 1984 by Texas Tech University Paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee. They suggest that Protoavis was a contemporary of the earliest dinosaurs. "If the identification is correct," says Yale Paleobiologist John...
When unearthed in 1861 from a German quarry, Archaeopteryx seemed an ideal argument for the then new theories of evolution. Its reptilian brain and scaly head, combined with an avian wishbone and cloak of feathers, led many scientists to hail it as a missing link between reptiles and birds. But Protoavis has even more birdlike features than its younger cousin, Chatterjee believes. While both species have wishbones and forelimbs elongated into wings, he points out, the older fossil also has a bird's wide eye sockets, a large braincase and a breastbone designed to anchor muscles used in flight. Tiny...