Bird Evolution Thoughts

[lotsofpets]

Archaeopteryx lithographica is probably the first or best known "bird" in history.* Being that it had fairly well-formed feathers, and other features that we consider indicative of birds, it doesn't make sense that it was the first bird evolutionary speaking. There had to be others before it. They lived approximately 150 mya in the Jurassic. I have heard of Proto aves that supposedly lived during the Triassic, but I'm not sure of the validity of the species. Birds also took some other interesting paths such as Microraptor gui with four feathered wings. Unfortunately the fossil record is poor and birds didn't fossilize well.

Then there are the theropod and other dinosaurs that had or supposedly had fine downy feathers, or underdeveloped feathers themselves much later after birds or birdlike animals developed. To me it makes sense that feathers may have developed in several lines evolutionary speaking. Feathers were/are a convergent trait.

[tracer]

birds had teeth. but they dint brush them.

where's auspex? he's teh guy who's our proto bridman.

[Kosmoceras]

Well, I know that there have been dinosaure like birds, but I think they call it "the first known bird" because it is the first bird we have discovered fossilised. But it says "known" because there might be ones before it, but have not been discovered yet.

I think this is correct, but I am no bird expert.

Auspex should be here soon though, hopefully he can correctly say what we know so far.

[Auspex]

Archaeopteryx, when discovered, was called a bird because it had feathers, and this idea stuck. Current analysis has gone a long way toward dispelling this idea; there is little else birdlike about it. Archaeopteryx was not the progenitor of birds; it was an offshoot from the same base lineage. Neither were the Enantiornithes, though true birds by any measure, direct progenitors of the Neornithes (the only surviving avian theropods); there are dead end offshoots from each group as well. 'Tis a tangled web...