What is an Archaeopteryx ?

 Archaeopteryx  The First Bird

Archaeopteryx  

The Archaeopteryx was part reptile, and part bird. It is a wonderful example of an in-between creatures. Several fossils of this reptile-bird have been found in fine grained stone.

Archaeopteryx Fossil

The skeleton looks like that of dinosaur, but it shows the presence of feathers. Feathers evolved from the scales of reptile. and are the most important feature of birds. The Archaeopteryx  had a toothed jaw , a long tail , and a weak breast bone. Unlike the bones of birds. all the bones of Archaeopteryx were solid and strong. The feathers of the Archaeopteryx  tell us that the crocodile is related to the cuckoo.

As you can see, they were a lot like modern birds - but…

• With a more prominent tail.
• Feathers on their legs.
• Small claws on their wings.

…but their resemblance to modern birds is remarkable.

There were probably at least dozens of sub-species of Archaeopteryx - we’ve found several of them - so we’d expect there to have been others. So like modern birds, they’d have been different sizes, maybe different feather colorations, etc.

Here are some photos of fossils - there are over a dozen really complete fossils that have been found - and a bunch of partial skeletons.

This one shows those claws at the tips of the wing bones, and the vertebrae making up the tail…its clearly not a “bird”. You can see kinda ghostly fossilised feathers, so it’s not really a dinosaur…it’s somewhere between the two…which is PRECISELY what you’d expect as birds evolved from dinosaurs.

These fossils have been found by a wide variety of researchers from different institutions and at different locations. The fossils have been examined by probably thousands more experts. The idea that someone could have faked all of these fossils is beyond reasonable possibility.

Nope - the Archeopteryx was once a real living animal.

                        pictures source : Google image ; “no copyright infringement is intended”