Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The evolution of birds began in the Jurassic Period, with the earliest birds derived from a clade of theropod dinosaurs named Paraves. [1] Birds are categorized as a biological class, Aves. For more than a century, the small theropod dinosaur Archaeopteryx lithographica from the Late Jurassic period was considered to have been the earliest bird.
A turning point came in the early twentieth century with the writings of Gerhard Heilmann of Denmark.An artist by trade, Heilmann had a scholarly interest in birds and from 1913 to 1916, expanding on earlier work by Othenio Abel, [12] published the results of his research in several parts, dealing with the anatomy, embryology, behavior, paleontology, and evolution of birds. [13]
Archaeopteryx (/ ˌ ɑːr k iː ˈ ɒ p t ər ɪ k s /; lit. ' old-wing '), sometimes referred to by its German name, "Urvogel" (lit. Primeval Bird) is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs.The name derives from the ancient Greek ἀρχαῖος (archaīos), meaning "ancient", and πτέρυξ (ptéryx), meaning "feather" or "wing".
The shared history of birds and dinosaurs is well-established, but exactly how true birds evolved during the Mesozoic is a bit of a mystery. Adding to this conundrum are fossilized footprints of ...
Birds evolved from certain feathered theropod dinosaurs, and there is no real dividing line between birds and non-avian dinosaurs except that some of the former survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event while the latter did not. For the purposes of this article, a 'bird' is considered to be any member of the clade Avialae. [1]
Maniraptora is a clade of coelurosaurian dinosaurs which includes the birds and the non-avian dinosaurs that were more closely related to them than to Ornithomimus velox. It contains the major subgroups Avialae, Dromaeosauridae, Troodontidae, Oviraptorosauria, and Therizinosauria. Ornitholestes and the Alvarezsauroidea are also often included.
In fact, birds evolved from small feathered dinosaurs. The first rudimentary feathers are thought to have evolved from reptilian scales nearly 250 million years ago in animals ancestral to ...
It is an evolutionary grade of transitional fossils, the primitive birds halfway between non avian dinosaur ancestors and the derived modern birds (avian dinosaur). Fossils of early birds were poorly known until the late 20th century. Of those known, all fell into either the relatively modernly built birds with fused ribcage and the breastbone ...