Wow, are YOU confused... You "learned" your disinformation on this topic from creationist propaganda, didn't you? Big mistake.
Not only is Archaeopteryx not "completely bird", it's so reptilian that until additional fossils were found which more clearly showed the feathers, the first two Archaeopteryx fossils were mistaken for the dinosaur Compsognathus. But then, you'd have known this already if you had bothered to read the article before spewing your ignorance onto the thread. It contains such passages as the following, which even the most mentally challenged creationist wouldn't have had trouble understanding unless he had his hands clamped over his eyes lest he learn something that challenged his favorite falsehoods:
And:Both the "Eichstätt" specimen of Archaeopteryx discovered in 1951 and the "Solnhofen" in the 1960s were originally described as the dinosaur Compsognathus, not only because Archaeopteryx closely resembles it, but also because the feather impressions on those specimens were especially faint and weren't initially spotted. Futuyma (1982, 75) remarked on the misclassification, so this was hardly breaking news. See Wellnhofer (1990, 74-75) for skeletal comparisons of Archaeopteryx and Compsognathus, and Briggs (1991, 136) for fleshed out illustrations.
Which information of course Wells (2000, 115) knew: "One specimen of Archaeopteryx (collected in 1951) in which feathers were not immediately recognized was even misidentified as Compsognathus for several years."
And thus Coulter could have known. That is, had she been an attentive reader.
Some scholarly marginalia: you may have just spotted that Wells hadn't even got the misidentification bit right. There were two misidentified fossils, not one -- a point noted by both of the sources Wells (2000, 295) cited: Shipman (1998, 44-45, 115) and Dingus and Rowe (1998, 120, 138). Wells may have been less than attentive here, though, since he gave the wrong second page number for Dingus & Rowe ("185" instead of the correct 138).
Of course if one is like Coulter, this sort of fact spotting is never likely to come up, is it?
And by the way, both Darwin on Trial and Icons of Evolution depended on skipping a lot of information here, as Johnson (1991, 174) and Wells (2000, 295) had both cited Wellnhofer (1990), where the Archaeopteryx/Compsognathus anatomical comparison was made plain. We may surmise that Dedicated Scholar Coulter did not toddle off to the library at any stage of her "research" to check out the contents of the May 1990 issue of Scientific American listed in at least two works she had supposedly read.
Dingus & Rowe (1998, 185) specifically noted that Compsognathus was among the basal forms of the Tetanurae, the next node up the bird phylogenetic map from the Theropoda to which Coelophysis belonged. Consequently its features are more like that of birds (duh, since Compsognathus and Archaeopteryx had been literally confused more than once).And:
As for having "a bird brain", it's true that the balance and vision centers were enlarged in a way that indicates meeting the demands of flight, making Archaeopteryx's brain birdlike in many respects (as expected if it actually flew and didn't just glide), but calling it "all bird" is a gross misrepresentation. As you can see from the following figures, Archaeopteryx's brain was rather like a hybrid between the brains of reptiles and modern birds -- as would be expected from an evolutionary transitional form. It had enlarged vision and balance centers, but the forebrain was still distinctinctly shaped like a reptile's and not like a modern bird's, and the hindbrain was smooth and shaped like a reptile's, not lobed like a modern bird's. Furthermore, the brain/body ratio was squarely intermediate between that of reptiles and that of modern birds. Once again, this is classically transitional:Back to the fossils. Just how could the Compsognathus/Archaeopteryx mix up have been possible unless they were a lot alike?
In fact, just how alike they were should have been obvious to Wells at least, since his own source had called attention to the ankle structure of birds, noted by 19th century anatomists. As Dingus & Rowe (1998, 212) explained: "During growth, the 'solid' foot of adult birds begins with all the parts that remained separate throughout life in Compsognathus. Among reptiles, only Compsognathus exhibited this pattern, hence dinosaurs were the closest reptilian cousins of birds."
Here is where biologist Wells needed to switch on the inferential engine and think biologically.
Since morphology is due to genetics, wouldn't the existence of a dinosaur so anatomically similar to Archaeopteryx that it was repeatedly confused for it mean that the group to which Compsognathus belonged possessed some genes very similar to it? And was it impossible for the genetic package of that group to have been inherited by relatives not trapped in the Solnhofen limestone, ones not hampered by whatever it was that distinguished Compsognathus from birds?
And while we're about it -- what did distinguish Compsognathus from birds?
Again, Wells never said. But Carroll (1988, 340) had: "There is great overall similarity to Compsognathus, but this genus is too late in time (as a direct contemporary of Archaeopteryx) and too specialized in the reduction of the manus to two digits. No other adequately known theropod appears to be an appropriate ancestor."
That was it. The Archaeopteryx contemporary and lookalike Compsognathus lacked one finger.
As the number of digits in the vertebrate hand is modulated by alanine repeats in the Hoxd-13 gene, the mutations required for Compsognathus to lose that finger would appear to have been comparatively modest. Some reviews and relevant literature pertaining to limb formation and differentiation: Goodwin (1994, 147-161), Sordino et al. (1995), Averof & Patel (1997), Kondo et al. (1997), Shubin et al. (1995; 1997), Gibson-Brown et al. (1998), Schwartz (1999, 339-345), Tabin et al. (1999), Laurin et al. (2000), Ruvinsky & Gibson-Brown (2000), Tudge (2000, 389-397), Wagner & Chiu (2001) and Capdevila & Belmonte (2002).
Since Wells (2000, 284) cited Shubin et al. (1997) and Tabin et al. (1999), he had to trip over some of this information too.
Given also the ubiquitous tendency for dinosaurs to reduce the number of their fingers and toes, suggesting a genetic tendency for that existed in their DNA, just how extraordinary would it have been for an ancestor of Compsognathus to have had a third one, just like Archaeopteryx? Carroll was writing in 1988. Had there been any developments since to temper Wells' quote mining in 2000? By then a later Cretaceous relative of Compsognathus, the feathered Sinosauropteryx, had turned up with all three fingers (more about that below). And subsequent evaluation of the original Compsognathus (it is known from only two specimens, incidentally, one from France and the other in the Solnhofen) suggests it may have had the third digit too, but that this had simply been overlooked in its current fragmentary state (see http://www.dinosauricon.com/genera/compsognathus.html).
Since neither the detailed paleontology nor the developmental angle ever arose in Wells' book, he didn't have to think about these things. But then, given his letter to me, would it have changed his mind if Compsognathus had had three fingers? You get three guesses.
Following just how much of the forensic information got missed by Wells, it is easier to see how Wells (2000, 123) could write: "The claim that birds are dinosaurs strikes most people -- including many biologists -- as rather strange. Although it follows from cladistic theory, it defies common sense. Birds and dinosaurs may be similar in some respects, but they are also very different."
And exactly what survey of biologists did Wells conduct to indicate just how "many" questioned the dinosaur origin of birds, or on what basis they supposedly did it? Nor did Wells clarify just what these "very different" features consisted of that underlay his populist "common sense" take on dinosaurs.
Imagining secondary Coulter reading this -- and never investigating the veracity of what she has read -- makes Coulter's confusion regarding what animals existed in the past far easier to understand (though once more, not condonable).
You say it had "bird feet"? Dead wrong:
New Scientist Breaking News - Oldest bird had dinosaur feetHow many more would you like documenting your falsehood? I suppose it didn't occur to you to double-check your propaganda by Googling for "archeopteryx feet" before you spewed your disinformation?New specimen of Archeopteryx "shows that Archaeopteryx's feet and ankles were almost identical to those of it's close relatives, such as Velociraptor." Velociraptor, you will note, is a freakin' dinosaur, not a bird.
Earliest Bird Had Feet Like Dinosaur, Fossil Shows
You say it had "bird wings", eh? Gee, that's funny, how many birds do you know with wings that had three long bony fingers complete with claws? And your hero Feduccia disagrees with you on that point, to which the appropriate comment is, "I take his expertise over you, especially anyone named 'wbmstr24'".
Bird lung? Read the article you keep failing to read.
Bird breastbone? Nice try. *ONE* fossil has a bony sternum, and it's different from the other Archeopteryx fossils in other significant ways too, so it's clear that its sternum is actually different from the others, and not just something that was preserved in one specimen but somehow magically lost from all the others. So how do you explain the LACK of the "bird breastbone in the other nine Archeopteryx specimens, eh? Oops.
and had absolutely no traits other than a distinct bird.....
Look, if you don't know what in the hell you're talking about, please stop posting your wild-ass guesses, you've been wrong on almost every one. So Archaeopteryx "had abosolutely no traits other than a distinct bird"? ROFL!!! Then how do you explain these reptilian features, Einstein?
Premaxilla and maxilla are not horn-covered. This is posh talk for "does not have a bill."[The above condensed from All About Archaeopteryx by Chris Nedin, which has far more information and quotes from primary research.Trunk region vertebra are free. In birds the trunk vertebrae are always fused.
Pubic shafts with a plate-like, and slightly angled transverse cross-section. A Character shared with dromaeosaurs but not with other dinosaurs or birds.
Cerebral hemispheres elongate, slender and cerebellum is situated behind the mid-brain and doesn't overlap it from behind or press down on it. This again is a reptilian feature. In birds the cerebral hemispheres are stout, cerebellum is so much enlarged that it spreads forwards over the mid-brain and compresses it downwards.
Neck attaches to skull from the rear as in dinosaurs not from below as in modern birds. The site of neck attachement (from below) is characteristic in birds, _Archaeopteryx_ does not have this character, but is the same as theropod dinosaurs.
Center of cervical vertebrae have simple concave articular facets. This is the same as the archosaur pattern. In birds the vertebrae are different, they have a saddle-shaped surface: "The most striking feature of the vertebrae is the simple disk-like facets of their centra, without any sign of the saddle-shaped articulations found in other birds" (de Beer 1954, p. 17).
Long bony tail with many free vertebrae up to tip (no pygostyle). Birds have a short tail and the caudal vertebrae are fused to give the pygostyle.
Premaxilla and maxilla bones bear teeth. No modern bird possess teeth.
Ribs slender, without joints or uncinate processes and do not articulate with the sternum. Birds have stout ribs with uncinate processes (braces between them) and articulate with the sternum.
Pelvic girdle and femur joint is archosaurian rather than avian (except for the backward pointing pubis as mentioned above).
The Sacrum (the vertebrae developed for the attachment of pelvic girdle) occupies 6 vertebra. This is the same as in reptiles and especially ornithipod dinosaurs. The bird sacrum covers between 11-23 vertebrae!
Metacarpals (hand) free (except 3rd metacarpal), wrist hand joint flexible. This is as in reptiles. In birds the metacarpals are fused together with the distal carpals in the carpo-metacarpus, wrist /hand fused.
Nasal opening far forward, separated from the eye by a large preorbital fenestra (hole). This is typical of reptiles, but not of birds.
Deltoid ridge of the humerus faces anteriorly as do the radial and ulnar condyles. Typical of reptiles but not found in birds.
Claws on 3 unfused digits. No modern adult bird has 3 claws, nor do they have unfused digits.
The fibula is equal in length to the tibia in the leg. This again is a typical character of reptiles. In birds the fibula is shortened and reduced. [When you eat a chicken drumstick, the fibula is the toothpick-like sliver of bone you find lying alongside the large "legbone", which is the tibia. Ich.]
Metatarsals (foot bones) free. In birds these are fused to form the tarsometatarsus.
Gastralia present. Gastralia are "ventral ribs," elements of dermal bone in the ventral wall of the abdomen. Typical of reptiles, they are absent in birds
I regret to inform you that you "know" next to nothing about Archaeopteryx, and what little you do "know" is dead wrong. That's what happens when you try to "learn" about science from creationist propagandists like Coulter et al, and not from science journals and reliable sources who don't, you know, hate science and want to try to convince people that it'll damn their souls to hell or something.