Word: archaeopteryx
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...Charles Darwin himself realized. He surely would have been delighted to see the riveting discoveries made by paleontologists in the subsequent century and a half. These new fossils eloquently reinforce his conviction that "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." The iconic winged Archaeopteryx, as well as newly described feathered fossils from China, show the transition from dinosaurs to their only living descendants, birds. Fossil whales with limbs demonstrate the evolutionary steps some mammals took to return...
...Actually, you do: transitional forms like Archaeopteryx, a lizard-like bird, have been known for many decades, and more pop up all the time. But casts from a newly discovered fossil, slated to go on display at the London Science Museum tomorrow are, by all accounts, the most impressive example to date of a transitional form. They come from a remarkable creature, mostly fish-like but with some clear adaptations that let it operate on land. It fits perfectly with the conventional tale told by evolutionists the epochal moment when animals first began to emerge from their ancestral ocean...
...fossil of a pigeon-size creature. Its bone structure and teeth were similar to those of dinosaurs. Yet along with the bones, the 150 million-year-old limestone in which it was trapped had also preserved the unmistakable impressions of feathers and wings. It was ultimately decided that Archaeopteryx, as it was named, was a transitional animal, related to dinosaurs but well along the evolutionary pathway to modern birds...
...happens so often in paleontology, though, the story has become much more muddled. The confusion began in 1964 with the discovery of a 13-ft.-long theropod called Deinonychus that was remarkably similar to Archaeopteryx, perhaps 50 million years more recent, but lacked wings and feathers. Apparently, the evolution from theropod to bird took many turns and detours...
Mononychus may be the discovery of a lifetime. The turkey-size predator, ! with its mouthful of sharp teeth and long tail, looked quite similar to the theropods. Even so, says paleontologist Mark Norell, it shares a number of features with modern birds. "In Archaeopteryx, for example," he explains, "the fibula ((the thin bone in the leg)) touches the ankle. In birds that doesn't happen, and the same is true of Mononychus. Birds have a keeled sternum ((or breastbone)), where the flight muscles attach. Mononychus also had a keeled sternum." Some of Mononychus' wristbones were fused together, which is another...