[AndrewC]

Your relentless confusion is understood to mean that on future threads we should expect to see you trolling with the same trap. We knew that already.

There is no confusion on my part. I am pointing out the just-so nature of what you post as evidence. The Sinosauropteryx remains ~15 million years younger than the Archie, despite your attempts at confusing the issue. Unless you count the protoavis or longisquama(you don't) Archie remains the oldest feathered animal. And its feathers are advanced.

[VadeRetro]

There is no confusion on my part.

But you happily lost gomaaa in your usual dance of the ambiguously-worded objections.

I am pointing out the just-so nature of what you post as evidence.

To distract from what I am actually saying. Archaeopteryx (150 mya, "bird" bin) and Sinornithosaurus (135 mya, "dinosaur" bin) are more like each other than either is like any modern bird, more like each other than either is like many dinosaurs, and far more like each other than any reptile is like any modern bird. Quite possibly neither is on any modern creature's line of descent. Nevertheless, their similarities indicate that neither lies far from some pre-Archaeopteryx true historical divergence.

You may never find the exact divergence point in the fossil record. You're getting close when things get hard to tell apart which aren't hard to tell apart now. You're past it when there's only one kind of thing around, period.

Purely for the lurkers:

Taxonomy, Transitional Forms, and the Fossil Record.