Dinosaur or Bird or Both?

Apart from a broken arm the OUGSME trip to the Munich Mineral and Fossil Fair, Eichstätt and Nördlingen (4—10 November 2006) was a great success – thank you Mike! I was most impressed by the Archaeopteryx, well not because of its size. It is similar in size and shape to a magpie, with broad, rounded wings and a long tail. We saw different copies in museums: the Palaeontological Museum in Munich, the Jura Museum in Eichstätt and the Bürgermeister-Müller Museum in Solnhofen. We learned about the evolution of feathers and wings that eventually made flight possible and to perfection. We learned about the environment where it lived and died. The first discovery of Archaeopteryx in 1860 was only a feather, hence its name. Archaeopteryx is derived from Ancient Greek αρχαιος (archaios) meaning 'ancient' and πτερυξ (pteryx) meaning 'feather' (or 'wing'). The finding place is the Upper Jurassic period (Malm epoch, Kimmeridgian stage, 155-150 million years ago) of Bavaria - 10 specimens so far. Archaeopteryx is the earliest and most primitive known avian. Its feathers resembled those of modern birds but Archaeopteryx was rather different from any bird known today, in that it had jaws lined with sharp teeth, three 'fingers' ending in curved claws and a long bony tail.

Archaeopteryx is a bird because it had feathers and could fly. However, it retained many dinosaurian characters which are not found in modern birds, whilst having certain characters found in birds but not in dinosaurs.

The species Archaeopteryx bavarica is, of course, named after Bavaria, while the species Archaeopteryx lithographica is named after the limestone in which it was discovered. The stone is a smooth, fine grained limestone which was used in printing. The limestone formed on the bottom of a hypersaline lagoon and is quarried in and around the Solnhofen area.

Read more about the Archaeopteryx at
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx

I look forward to the coming write-ups to appear in and on this Website.

Ole