“I went through a period in high school when I hated dinosaurs and fossils,” Magovern Regester said while calling from her Silver Plume, Colorado, home. “But as I got older I regained a fascination ...

For over 150 years, Archaeopteryx has been the poster child of bird evolution. Discovered in Germany’s Solnhofen limestones, this iconic fossil has long symbolized the transitional phase between ...

few body parts. It wasn’t until the third fossil was found in the 1870s that a complete picture of the Archaeopteryx was formed. The London specimen, missing its head and parts of its neck ...

Until now, Archaeopteryx was the only unquestionable bird known from the Jurassic, which ended roughly 145 million years ago. "This fossil (Baminornis) indicates that Jurassic birds probably ...

There is, however, scarce fossil evidence of this early transformation. In fact, the feathered Archaeopteryx—seen as an intermediate link between dinosaurs and modern avians—was the single ...

The researchers named one of the fossils Baminornis zhenghensis. For a long time, Archaeopteryx was the only widely accepted Jurassic bird. Archaeopteryx fossils show it possessed feathered wings ...

When the first Archaeopteryx fossils were discovered, shortly after the publication of Darwin’s most famous work, an amazed world hailed them as the transition point between reptiles and birds.

“If the avian status of Archaeopteryx is in question, the Baminornis zhenghensis is currently the most definitive Jurassic bird,” Wang said. The fossil suggests that the first birds may have emerged ...