Tag Archive for 'Archaeopteryx'

The Chicago Archaeopteryx. Image credit: Delaney Drummond / Field Museum.

New, Perfectly-Preserved Specimen of Archaeopteryx Discovered

May 15, 2025 by News Staff

Dubbed the Chicago Archaeopteryx, the new fossil is the 14th known specimen of this iconic Jurassic species. The Chicago Archaeopteryx. Image credit: Delaney...

Baminornis zhenghensis. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.

New Fossils from China Fill Gap in Early Evolutionary History of Birds

Feb 12, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have unearthed the fossilized remains of two Jurassic bird species at a locality in Zhenghe county, Fujian province, southeast China. These...

An artist’s impression of Navaornis hestiae. Image credit: Júlia D’Oliveira.

80-Million-Year-Old Enantiornithine Fossil Fills Gap between Archaeopteryx and Modern Birds

Nov 14, 2024 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unearthed the exquisitely preserved remains of Cretaceous enantiornithine bird in São Paulo state, southeastern Brazil. The extraordinary...

Life reconstruction of Cratonavis zhui. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.

Early Cretaceous Bird Had Dinosaur-Like Skull and Bird-Like Body

Jan 4, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Cratonavis zhui, a new species of pygostylian bird from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota of China, had a unique combination of a dinosaurian skull with...

Embryological series of Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) showing the transition from ancestral to derived pelvic states across avian prehatching ontogeny: (a) pelvic reconstructions along the evolutionary transition to living birds; note that pelves are shown as examples of character states and are not in one-to-one correspondence with ontogenetic stages; (b) during ontogeny, the ilium extends first posteriorly and then anteriorly, the pubis retroverts, the tail becomes relatively reduced and a transient pubic boot appears at intermediate ontogenetic stages; (c) the CFL (M. caudofemoralis longus homologue) is large during early ontogenetic stages; the IF (M. iliofemoralis homologue) originates smaller and further back on the ilium before expanding anteriorly to the derived condition and never splits into two muscles as seen in the adult; and PIFE1+2 (Mm. puboischiofemoralis externus 1 et 2 homologues) fail to fully differentiate until after the pubis is retroverted; muscles that are not highlighted are in gray; (d) the derived pelvic spinal nerve arrangement in birds (top), with additional spinal nerves contributing to the sacral plexus and nerves in Coturnix embryos (bottom). Scale bars - 1 mm in (b and d), 2 mm in (c). Image credit: Griffin et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04982-w.

Study: Developing Bird Hip Bone Passes through Ancestral Dinosaurian Conditions

Aug 8, 2022 by News Staff

Living birds have bodies substantially modified from the ancestral reptilian condition. The bird pelvis (hip bone) in particular experienced major changes...

Optical photograph of the 150-million-year-old isolated fossil feather of Archaeopteryx. Image credit: Carney et al, doi: 10.1038/ncomms1642.

First Fossil Feather Ever Found Belonged to Archaeopteryx

Sep 30, 2020 by News Staff

Renowned as the first fossil feather ever known, the 150-million-year-old isolated fossil feather found in the Jurassic limestone deposits of Solnhofen,...

Reconstruction of Archaeopteryx albersdoerferi. Image credit: Zhao Chuang / Martin Kundrát.

Paleontologists Discover New Species of Archaeopteryx

Oct 26, 2018 by News Staff

Archaeopteryx was first described as the ‘missing link’ between reptiles and birds in 1861 — and is now regarded as the link between dinosaurs...

An artist’s impression of what Archaeopteryx lithographica, one of the earliest known birds, would have looked like in flight. Image credit: Carl Buell / Nicholas Longrich.

Archaeopteryx Was Active Flyer, Paleontologists Say

Mar 14, 2018 by News Staff

Archaeopteryx is an iconic fossil species with feathered wings from the Late Jurassic of Germany. The question of whether this dino-bird was an elaborately...

Scansoriopteryx, a hatchling. Image credit: Matt Martyniuk / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Scansoriopteryx Study Challenges Hypothesis that Birds Evolved from Dinosaurs

Jul 10, 2014 by News Staff

The re-examination of Scansoriopteryx – a sparrow-sized, pre-Archaeopteryx, bird-like creature that lived in what is today China during the Jurassic...

Reconstruction of Archaeopteryx in flight. Image credit: R. Liebreich / Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology, Munich.

Archaeopteryx: New Specimen Reveals Amazing Details about Feathers of Oldest-Known Bird

Jul 4, 2014 by News Staff

German paleontologists led by Dr Oliver Rauhut of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany, have discovered a new specimen of Archaeopteryx...

Archaeopteryx lithographica, one of early birds. Image credit: H. Raab / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Study Sheds More Light on Origin of Birds

Feb 25, 2014 by News Staff

According to new research on the first birds and bird-like dinosaurs (Paraves) which lived 160 to 120 million years ago, bird wings and small body size...

Archaeopteryx lithographica, one of the earliest known birds (Carl Buell / Nicholas Longrich).

Flightless Dinosaurs Had Flight-Ready Brains, Study Says

Aug 1, 2013 by News Staff

A team of researchers reporting in the journal Nature has revealed that some non-avian dinosaurs had brains that were as large or larger than that of Archaeopteryx...

Aurornis xui – New Candidate for Oldest Bird

Jun 10, 2013 by Enrico de Lazaro

A newly discovered bird-like dinosaur named Aurornis xui is about 10 million years older than Archaeopteryx, the feathered dinosaur previously considered...