Posted on 05/06/2008 5:27:49 PM PDT by Soliton
A spectacularly preserved new Chinese fossil reveals a previously unseen stage in the early evolution of flight.
Called Eoconfuciusornis, it is a missing link between the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, and more advanced birds that have been discovered in the Yixian geological formation in China.
The Yixian deposits have yielded remarkably diverse fauna that have revolutionised avian palaeontology, but they are limited to a period from 125 to 120 million years ago too narrow a time span to show much evidence of evolution within bird lineages
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
But, I wonder how long it will take for the usual suspects to call it a fraud.
Every new discovery creates TWO missing links, one on either side of it.
Looks like a duck...
All the others have been PROVEN to be frauds. Why should this be any different?
Ping. Ping Pong.
That has been run over several times and laid out to dry.
I know. "A big scary demon under ground created this stone statue that looks like a bird just to contradict St. Ben of the Stein".
Name two that have been proved to be frauds.
How much time do you need? How much do you have?
They're saying that 5 million years is too narrow to show much evidence of evolution within bird lineages -- uh, how much time do they postulate for hominid evolution? Less than 5 million I think. How's that work?
The Chinese have perpetrated several genuine frauds in the recent past, especially regarding early birds. I hope other scientists are looking very closely at this.
I think you're just engaged in wishful thinking. Perhaps you have links that support your statement.
Adaptation is driven by changing environments.
A few hundred thousand years of rapid frequent climate change - ice ages, thaws, warm inter-glacials and more ice ages - drives rapid adaptation (or extinction for critters that can’t adapt fast enough).
Five million years of a relatively steady warm wet climate doesn’t put much additional evolutionary pressure on critters that successfully adapted in the first few tens of millennia.
The differences in adaptation rates are exactly what the underlying theory would predict.
This is great fossil of a line of birds which had long feathers on their legs as well.
A documentary on PBS’s NOVA showed how these long leg feathers helped the bird fly versus today’s birds which do not have these features at all.
What is the “rational caucus”?
GGG ping
I’m not seeing any leg feathers in the fossil. Two wings, and two streamer feathers in the tail. The upper leg is cocked up over the upper wing and doesn’t seem to have any sizeable feathers of its own.
Name two Chinese frauds.
I threw it in there. There is a Catholic caucus where criticism is prohibited
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