New art, new art! Here’s the original:
And here’s the clay version!
So who is this guy? Archaeopteryx (besides being ridiculously hard to spell a few times in a row) is also known as the ‘original bird’. He is thought to be the missing link between birds and dinosaur evolution. In other words, he’s a pretty important discovery!
The first Archaeopteryx (let’s just call him Archie) was publicly announced in 1861, right after the late and great Charles Darwin published the infamous Origin of Species. Fine timing, I say! We have since found 9 other specimens, all of which have lent evidence to the theory of evolution.
The coolest thing about Archie isn’t that he was around 150 million years ago (crowsfeet, anyone?), but was that he had one awesome feature — Archie had feathers. Now, whether or not Archie was a real flyer or more of a ‘glider‘, we don’t really know. But his tail feathers were quite broad, which tends to imply they were used to get his body off the ground.
Of course, if there’s one thing scientists are notorious for, it is not being able to agree. Some folks think that Archie was a tree-dweller – climbing his way through the branches to find food. These guys think that flight evolved as animals glided down trees. (This is known as the ‘trees down’ hypothesis.) Other scientists believe that birds evolved flight by running along the ground and finally lifting themselves into the air. Surprise, surprise – this is called the ‘ground up’ hypothesis.
Either way, Archie was a pretty awesome find and although the combination of reptile + feathers may sound menacing, he was only about the size of a large chicken!
