Most Famous Fossil?
Tuesday, 18. March 2008, 14:50:24
I was in Berlin all last week. The timing was not optimal. The weather was bad and public transports were striking. Fortunately the natural history museum - Museum für Naturkunde - is in walking distance from the main station, indoors, and well worth a visit. The exhibitions include the famous Berlin specimen of the Archaeopteryx, which may well be the most famous fossil in the world. It is well worth mentioning that they exhibit the original, and not just a mould (or cast or replica or whatever they are called).
My photo here is of such a mould exhibited in a museum at Solnhofen, and thus not far from where the fossil was discovered in 1876 or 1877. Archaeopteryx lived in the late Jurassic Period around 155–150 million years ago. It is considered an important link between dinosaurs and birds, and has been called things like “a flying dinosaur” or “the first bird”. Similar in size and shape to a European Magpie, Archaeopteryx could grow to about 50 centimetres in length. Despite its small size, broad wings, and ability to fly, Archaeopteryx has more in common with small theropod dinosaurs than it does with modern birds.
This next image shows a model of Archaeopteryx lithographica on display at the Oxford University Museum.
I find it interesting to follow the evolution from feet to wings, and of course from hair to feather - two important steps towards flying. In fact the name Archaeopteryx is derived from the Ancient Greek archaios meaning 'ancient' and pteryx meaning 'feather' or 'wing'. Three fingers still had claws.
In the year 2000 palaeontologists found tiny feathers encased in a lump of amber in a quarry in the Poitou-Charentes region of France. The seven feathers are ca. a hundred million years old (Early Cretaceous, Late Albian) and have features of both feather-like fibers found with some two-legged dinosaurs known as theropods and of modern bird feathers. This is yet another link in or proof of the gradual evolution of feathers from the primitive filaments of some theropod dinosaurs to the modern feathers of Archaeopteryx and Cretaceous birds.
The work is reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, of 7 March 2008 under the title
“The early evolution of feathers: fossil evidence from Cretaceous amber of France”.
And finally below an image of a reconstruction of the Archaeopteryx skeleton from the Berlin museum.
My earlier post on the Berlin Museum für Naturkunde is here and on the Archaeopteryx here.
• http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/102024/?k=Perrichot+feathers
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18285280
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/02/20/scidino120.xml
• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080311-amber-feathers.html
My photo here is of such a mould exhibited in a museum at Solnhofen, and thus not far from where the fossil was discovered in 1876 or 1877. Archaeopteryx lived in the late Jurassic Period around 155–150 million years ago. It is considered an important link between dinosaurs and birds, and has been called things like “a flying dinosaur” or “the first bird”. Similar in size and shape to a European Magpie, Archaeopteryx could grow to about 50 centimetres in length. Despite its small size, broad wings, and ability to fly, Archaeopteryx has more in common with small theropod dinosaurs than it does with modern birds.This next image shows a model of Archaeopteryx lithographica on display at the Oxford University Museum. I find it interesting to follow the evolution from feet to wings, and of course from hair to feather - two important steps towards flying. In fact the name Archaeopteryx is derived from the Ancient Greek archaios meaning 'ancient' and pteryx meaning 'feather' or 'wing'. Three fingers still had claws.
In the year 2000 palaeontologists found tiny feathers encased in a lump of amber in a quarry in the Poitou-Charentes region of France. The seven feathers are ca. a hundred million years old (Early Cretaceous, Late Albian) and have features of both feather-like fibers found with some two-legged dinosaurs known as theropods and of modern bird feathers. This is yet another link in or proof of the gradual evolution of feathers from the primitive filaments of some theropod dinosaurs to the modern feathers of Archaeopteryx and Cretaceous birds.
The work is reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, of 7 March 2008 under the title
“The early evolution of feathers: fossil evidence from Cretaceous amber of France”.
And finally below an image of a reconstruction of the Archaeopteryx skeleton from the Berlin museum.
My earlier post on the Berlin Museum für Naturkunde is here and on the Archaeopteryx here.
• http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/102024/?k=Perrichot+feathers
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18285280
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/02/20/scidino120.xml
• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080311-amber-feathers.html
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