Posted on 07/27/2011 1:55:41 PM PDT by Red Badger
One of the world's most famous fossil creatures, widely considered the earliest known bird, is getting a rude present on the 150th birthday of its discovery: A new analysis suggests it isn't a bird at all.
Chinese scientists are proposing a change to the evolutionary family tree that boots Archaeopteryx off the "bird" branch and onto a closely related branch of birdlike dinosaurs.
Archaeopteryx (ahr-kee-AHP'-teh-rihx) was a crow-sized creature that lived about 150 million years ago. It had wings and feathers, but also quite un-birdlike traits like teeth and a bony tail. Discovered in 1861 in Germany, two years after Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," it quickly became an icon for evolution and has remained popular since.
The Chinese scientists acknowledge they have only weak evidence to support their proposal, which hinges on including a newly recognized dinosaur.
Other experts say the change could easily be reversed by further discoveries. And while it might shake scientific understanding within the bird lineage, they said, it doesn't make much difference for some other evolutionary questions.
Archaeopteryx dwells in a section of the family tree that's been reshuffled repeatedly over the past 15 or 20 years and still remains murky. It contains the small, two-legged dinosaurs that took the first steps toward flight. Fossil discoveries have blurred the distinction between dinosaurlike birds and birdlike dinosaurs, with traits such as feathers and wishbones no longer seen as reliable guides.
"Birds have been so embedded within this group of small dinosaurs ... it's very difficult to tell who is who," said Lawrence Witmer of Ohio University, who studies early bird evolution but didn't participate in the new study.
The proposed reclassification of Archaeopteryx wouldn't change the idea that birds arose from this part of the tree, he said, but it could make scientists reevaluate what they think about evolution within the bird lineage itself.
"Much of what we've known about the early evolution of birds has in a sense been filtered through Archaeopteryx," Witmer said. "Archaeopteryx has been the touchstone... (Now) the centerpiece for many of those hypotheses may or may not be part of that lineage."
The new analysis is presented in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature by Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and colleagues. They compared 384 specific anatomical traits of 89 species to figure out how the animals were related. The result was a tree that grouped Archaeopteryx with deinonychosaurs, two-legged meat-eaters that are evolutionary cousins to birds.
But that result appeared only when the analysis included a previously unknown dinosaur that's similar to Archaeopteryx, which the researchers dubbed Xiaotingia zhengi. It was about the size of a chicken when it lived some 160 million years ago in the Liaoning province of China, home to many feathered dinosaurs and early birds.
Julia Clarke of the University of Texas at Austin, who did not participate in the study, said the reclassification appeared to be justified by the current data. But she emphasized the study dealt with a poorly understood section of the evolutionary tree, and that more fossil discoveries could very well shift Archaeopteryx back to the "bird" branch.
Anyway, moving it "a couple of branches" isn't a huge change, and whether it's considered a bird or not is mostly a semantic issue that doesn't greatly affect larger questions about the origin of flight, she said.
Luis Chiappe, an expert in early bird evolution at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County who wasn't part of the new study, said he doesn't think the evidence is very solid.
"I feel this needs to be reassessed by other people, and I'm sure it will be," he said.
This artist's rendition released by Nature shows what scientists at Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing are dubbing "Xiaotingia zhengi." The discovery of its fossilized remains helped scientists propose an evolutionary tree that suggests archaeopteryx is not a bird. (AP Photo/Nature, Xing Lida and Liu Yi)
I never thought it was a “bird” as in modern “birds”. It was presented as something else - some creature evolving on the way to birds. It had teeth and clawed fingers on the wings - un”birdlike” characteristics among others.
When looking at fossil remains and trying to piece them together with modern groups or species, it is like looking at twigs and pieces of branchs and trunks from a tree and trying to reconstruct the whole tree. When the pieces you have very often represent only a very small percentage of the entire tree, its difficult to point with certainty a particular twig and identify it as being in the same branch as another twig.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoatzin
“It is notable for having chicks which possess claws on two of their wing digits.”
Oh, good. Now I don’t have to make a fool of myself trying to pronounce the name in public.
The important question is,”What does it taste like?”
Interesting article and a good read, although I’m wondering how many people will skip over this line from the article and just focus on the headline;
“The Chinese scientists acknowledge they have only weak evidence to support their proposal, which hinges on including a newly recognized dinosaur.”
Bird or not they tasted like chicken.
Evolutionists strike out again!
chicks which possess claws on two of their wing digits...
...thought for a moment we were discussing some of my high school dates...
chicks which possess claws on two of their wing digits...
...thought for a moment we were discussing some of my high school dates...
well.. I guess I can smash up all them slabs of these little fellas and use them for walkways... let a future generation put the pieces together. (just kidding, what do they go for?)
An Archaeopteryx is a bird is a tree is a bike is a boy. Uhmm, I think I am getting this evolution thing. S/
Looks like a doorman at some weird disco in the early 80s.
A-well everybody’s heard about the bird
Bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, bird is the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, well-a bird is the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well a bird bird bird, well-a bird is the word
A-well-a bird bird b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, well the bird is the word
A-well-a bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a don’t you know about the bird?
Well everybody knows that the bird is the word
A-well-a bird bird b-bird’s the word
A-well-a
A-well-a everybody’s hearin’ about the bird
Bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a don’t you know about the bird?
Well everybody’s talkin’ all about the bird!
A-well-a bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well a bird
Surfin’ bird
[gibberish]
Well don’t you know about the bird?
Well everybody knows that the bird is the word!
A-well-a bird bird, b-bird’s the word
[gibberish]
Pteranodon.
Creationists are Imageo Dei.
Evolutionists are Imageo Goo.
The chinese can play with semantics and try to secure their hegemony in the scientific world by playing with labels all they want, Archaeopteryx simply is what it is, an undeniable evolutionary link between reptiles and the rise of the true birds. They need to stick to stuff they know like harvesting kidneys from condemned political prisoners.
” Xiaotingia zhengi.”
Xiao means little or small. Pronounced pretty much like ‘chow,’ I have a grey tiger cat named Xiaohu. Little Tiger.
Well, I was taught in HS that Archaeopteryx was a bird, so I’m sticking to it.
On the other hand, I was taught in HS that “Natural Born Citizen” meant born on the soil of parents who were citizens.
So who the F knows these daze???
That song is used by a local used car lot in their commercials.
They have the sales people doing the funky chicken in the parking lot while it plays in the background........
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