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Word: unreptilian (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
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...September, Yale Paleontologist John H. Ostrom spotted one musty specimen that looked odd to his trained eye. It was labeled pterosaur, a flying reptile that inhabited the earth from 65 to 200 million years ago. But when Ostrom held the fossil to the light, he saw the distinctly unreptilian impression of a feather. "My heartbeat began going up fast," recalls Ostrom, who quickly recognized that the specimen was not a pterosaur at all. It was, in fact, a far rarer prehistoric aviator: an Archaeopteryx (literally "ancient wing"), the earliest known bird...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Science: How Birds Began to Fly | 12/7/1970 | See Source »

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