Claim CC214.1.1:
Archaeopteryx was fully bird. It had fully formed wings and feathers.
Source:
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here?
Brooklyn, NY, pp.
79-80.
Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR:
Master Books, p. 85.
Response:
- Archaeopteryx is defined to be a bird (technically, an avialan).
However, it had many more dinosaurian traits than bird traits. Its
main bird traits are
- long external nostrils.
- quadrate and quadratojugal (two jaw bones) not sutured together.
- palatine bones that have three extensions.
- all teeth lacking serrations.
- large lateral furrows in top rear body of the vertebrae.
Other birdlike traits of Archaeopteryx are found also on several
non-avian dinosaurs. These traits include feathers, a furcula
(wishbone) fused at the midline, and a pubis elongate and directed
backward. The birdlike hallux (toe) attributed to Archaeopteryx is
not found on a recent better preserved specimen (Mayr et al. 2005;
see also Middleton 2002).
Dinosaurian traits include the following:
- no bill
- teeth on premaxilla and maxilla bones
- nasal opening far forward, separated from the eye by a large
preorbital fenestra (hole)
- neck attached to skull from the rear
- center of cervical vertebrae that have simple concave articular facets
- long bony tail; no pygostyle
- ribs slender, without joints or uncinate processes, and not
articulated with the sternum
- sacrum that occupies six vertebrae
- small thoracic girdle
- metacarpals free (except third metacarpal), wrist hand joint flexible
- claws on three unfused digits
- pelvic girdle and femur joint shaped like those of
archosaurs in many details
- bones of pelvis unfused
and over 100 other differences from birds (Chiappe 2002; Norell and
Clarke 2001).
In addition, Archaeopteryx was intermediate between dinosaurs
and
modern birds in the shape of the coracoid and humerus bones and the
brain (Elzanowski 2002; Nedin 1999).
Links:
Nedin, Chris. 1999. All about Archaeopteryx.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html
References:
- Chiappe, L. M. 2002. Basal bird phylogeny. In:
Chiappe and Witmer, pp. 448-472.
- Chiappe, L. M. and L. M. Witmer (eds.). 2002. Mesozoic Birds: Above
the Heads of Dinosaurs. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
- Elzanowski, A. 2002. Archaeopterygidae (Upper Jurassic of Germany).
In: Chiappe and Witmer, pp. 129-159.
- Mayr, Gerald, Burkhard Pohl, and D. Stefan Peters. 2005. A
well-preserved Archaeopteryx specimen with theropod features.
Science 310: 1483-1486.
- Middleton, K. M. 2002. Evolution of the perching foot in theropods.
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 22: 88A.
- Nedin, Chris. 1999. (see above)
- Norell, M. A. and J. A. Clarke. 2001. Fossil that fills a critical gap
in avian evolution. Nature 409: 181-184.
created 2003-5-10, modified 2005-4-18