OMG We missed Archie's birthday!!

Adam Khor

And by Archie I mean Archaeopteryx, which turned 150th years (of being discovered) in September 30!

And, how cool is this? Germany issued an awesome commemorative silver coin (a 10 euro coin) depicting the Berlin Archaeopteryx, the most famous one, with the inscription "Archaeopteryx- Witness Evolution".



Now this would NEVER happen in my country- most people doesn´t even acknowledge Archaeopteryx's existence

http://witmerlab.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/evolution-icon-archaeopteryx-turns-150-this-year-how-are-we-celebrating/

Anyways, happy belated birthday Archaeopteryx! You don´t need to be a bird to be awesome! XD

Rubecula

One of the first 'bird-like' beasties.

Was it's birthday tweeted? (See what I did there? :pac: )

Allosaur

Rubecula wrote: »

One of the first 'bird-like' beasties.

Was it's birthday tweeted? (See what I did there? :pac: )

Badam-Ching!

He'll be here all week. Remember to tip your waitress....:D

Allosaur

Adam Khor wrote: »

Now this would NEVER happen in my country- most people doesn´t even acknowledge Archaeopteryx's existence

Don't be too hard on yourself. Its the same place that gave us Cope, Marsh, Brown, etc.
And the sacred gaurdian of evolution, Pastafarianism....

Galvasean

The 11th Archaeopteryx is upon us!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/314775_10150877653930354_721555353_21300428_2030551340_n.jpg

Adam Khor

Who are the primates in the second pic? :P

Its a shame this new Archie is headless :S

Mickeroo

Apparently there were claims diuring the summer that Archaeopteryx was a "bird like" dinosaur and not an early bird. Now they're saying it's in fact the earliest known bird again:

The first complete specimen of Archaeopteryx was discovered in Germany in 1861, two years after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

It lived around 150 million years ago, had sharp teeth, three fingers with claws, a long bony tail, feathers, broad wings, could grow to about 0.5 metres in length and could fly.

This combination of avian and reptilian characteristics saw it positioned at a key spot in the branching off of birds from dinosaurs in the tree of life, and provided hard evidence to back Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

Since then palaeontologists have largely taken it as the starting point for bird life.

But in July, researchers led by Xing Xu at Linyi University, China, announced the unearthing of Xiaotingia zhengi, a previously unknown chicken-sized dinosaur. The group carried out a statistical analysis of its anatomical traits that placed it in a group of bird-like dinosaurs called deinonychosaurs.

Archaeopteryx was so closely related to the new arrival that the consequent tweaking of the tree of life saw it shifted into this grouping as well.

Now Dr Michael Lee of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, Australia, has repeated the exercise using the same technique, known as phylogenetic analysis, only this time applying a more sophisticated statistical method.

Instead of considering all anatomical traits he examined as equally informative, Dr Lee placed greater weight on slow-evolving characteristics, in order to minimise the effect of biological traits that evolve independently in unrelated lineages.

"When we did this for Archaeopteryx we found this pulled it away from dinosaurs such as Velociraptor and nestled it back with the birds," said Dr Lee.

Adam Khor

I guess at the end of the day, it all depends on what one understands by "bird".

I still think its more closely related to raptors, but who knows?

Galvasean

Lob him in with the long suffering Caudipteryx and call him a 'dino-bird'. End debate.