The Archaeopteryx's new qualification as a more dinolike creature does not change its status as what Erickson calls a "poster child for evolution." It does, however, underscore the extent to which many of the early birds still looked—and acted—a lot like dinosaurs. "It's not just a simple story," Norell says. "These things didn't evolve overnight…. The assembly of modern birds is a very complex process—there's intermediate stages in metabolism, there's intermediate stages in morphology."
The new findings further augment the argument Darwin's adherent Thomas Henry Huxley made nearly 150 years ago that birds did evolve from dinosaurs. In fact, modern analysis techniques and a heap of new specimens have helped to fill in many of the gaps that 19th-century scientists still faced. "It's no longer a missing link by any stretch," says Erickson of the bird–dinosaur connection.
Not all of the blanks have been filled in, however. The next step will be to pin down more specifically when modern bird physiology really started to appear, Erickson says. That hunt will certainly be helped along by new fossil finds and improved technology. But like this study, future discoveries may also be illuminated by reexamining well-known fossils. "The field is moving quickly enough that a lot of people are asking new questions about the same old specimens," Norell says. Progress is not only made through finding new animals and better examining equipment, he adds, but can also be made simply by uncovering "new ways of looking at old materials."
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Add CommentI believe all animals came from dinosaurs, somehow. There were primates, dinosaurs...was there another broader category? If birds and fish fall under dinosaurs, what else would there be? Where did the insects come from, or the bears?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAm I the only one that finds this a bit confusing?
fish shouldn't fall under dinosaurs, there were 'fish' long before the dinosaurs, after all the 'fish' had to leave the water to become land dwellers. i'm using inverted commas, because although they lived in the water and had backbones doesnt mean that they were necessarily fish, they may have not passed on their genes. mammals descended from the 'mammal-like reptiles' or synapsids who are the dinosaurs before real dinosaurs, animals like dimetrodon...they lived (mainly) until the end of the permian period, when an extinction event occured, allowing the sauropods to usurp their ecological niches. these sauropods are the true dinosaurs, and lived at a time when mammals were generally small creatures, and with the K-T extinction were then able to flourish into the niches left vacant. birds evolved from small dinosaurs, as is evident by similarities like hollow bones and the way that a bird's joints move. the ancestors of insects were among the first to leave the seas, and at a time when there was more oxygen in the air could grow larger (due to insects being able to 'breathe' through there chitin). bears come from the 'rat-like' mammals, who in turn come from synapsids, who came from amphibious creatures who came from fish-like creatures who evolved from insect like creatures who evolved from simple multi celled creatures (like sponges) who are in turn really just a colony of independant single celled organisms. as an interesting aside, the mitochondria (which allow us to convert oxygen (a poison) to energy) were a very early organism, who merged with other single celled organisms creating multi-cellular amoeba-ish things, which are still alive today. we call them 'cells'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPetriDishFan-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou might want to take a look a look at Wikipedia. Depending on the classification system used, living things can be classified into three big groups: Archaea, Prokaryota, and Eukaryota. This Wikipedia chart might be of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tree_of_life_SVG.svg
The evolution of eukaryotes (with compartmentalized cells like plants, animals, fungi, and protozoans) is covered in detail on this phylogenetic tree:
http://tolweb.org/tree/
http://tellapallet.com/tree_of_life.htm
Dinosaurs, bears, and primates are branches from the category called tetrapods (four-limbed animals). Insects, spiders, and shrimp are branches from the category called arthropods (animals with a many-jointed shell).
Hey Stewie, pass me some of what you're smokin'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisState of evolution that can be tested. We think, since the theory of evolution by Jean Lamarck (1809,) that milestones have to be used to put order in all the bones collected. The one presented for Archaeopteryx is of first importance in biology. If we prefer real treasures called missing lings , like the remains of Lucy, it is because they unveiled some complete organisms. For Lucy all Australopithecines, the genus that has preceded Homo, were concerned. Concerning bone histology, all vertebrates are involved. At last, the two forms of discoveries are of first importance to the understanding of our condition. Pierre Francois Puech
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe best and most readable book on this subject is The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins
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