Word: archaeopteryx
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...