A fossil from China that's 150 million years old may be the world's earliest known bird. The discovery shows that the short tails characteristic of modern birds evolved much earlier than ...

Scientists now know that dinosaurs evolved bird-like characteristics long before the appearance of Archaeopteryx – the Late Jurassic fossil sometimes referred to as the earliest bird. Left, a painting ...

Archaeopteryx's strong ankles probably served as shock absorbers during landings. The bones comprising them were relatively long compared to those of related dinosaurs, and they were partially ...

Xu suggests that feather evolution may have gotten started in a common ancestor of pterodactyls and dinosaurs—nearly 240 million years ago, or some 95 million years before Archaeopteryx.

Dinosaurs were hugely successful during their ... who used it to virtually slice through Archaeopteryx fossils and trace out the cross sections of the bones in exacting detail.

Archaeopteryx is one of the world’s most famous fossils. It’s widely regarded as the missing link between dinosaurs and birds, displaying a perfect blend of avian and reptilian features. However, this ...

Ryan Carney, University of South Florida One of the most remarkable fossils of the birdlike dinosaur Archaeopteryx, known as the Thermopolis specimen, has bones that are preserved in three ...

It’s fun to imagine secret dinosaur survivors living today, hidden in a remote corner of Earth. But the truth of who made it through the extinction event 66 million years ago may surprise you.

This year marks the 150 th anniversary of the discovery of one of the most iconic dinosaur fossils of all time: Archaeopteryx. Unearthed in 1861 in southern Germany, it has long been considered the ...

Known as the ‘Icon of Evolution’ and ‘the missing link’ between dinosaurs and birds, Archaeopteryx has become one of the most famous fossil discoveries in Palaeontology. Now, as part of an ...

This is because it was a dinosaur—one that evolved long after the first known bird, Archaeopteryx, split off from the dinosaur family tree. Earlier dinosaurs, common ancestors to both ...