Nastasic/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images The Archaeopteryxoffered scientists a glimpse that birds and dinosaurscould share an ancient connection. Myriad fossils shed light on the stepwise transformation leading up to modern bird physiology, but much remains uncertain about how this shift occurred and whether it is still ongoing in some fashion. Still, modern birds possess bodies significantly different from most dinosaurs’ bodies.
Over time, scientists have unearthed more fossils of ancient, reptile-like birds, but also evidence that many raptor dinosaurs possessed feathers. This fossil represented a roughly 150-million-year-old missing link between reptiles and birds, possessing not only wings and feathers but also teeth, a long tail, and claws on its wing joints. HERE'S THE BACKGROUND - The first evidence that birds are dinosaurs came with the discovery of Archaeopteryx in Germany in 1861.
Before birds hatch, there is a brief period in the egg when their hip bones bear an uncanny resemblance to their reptilian ancestors. To see that birds are the inheritors of dinosaurs, you just need to look at birds’ bodies at the right moment in their development, the study finds. Yet a new study published last week in the journal Nature reveals living evidence for this fact, no fossils necessary. BIRDS ARE THE LAST DINOSAURS - but it took 150 years of analyzing fossils for scientists to come to that now-established conclusion.
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