Editorial: 鈥�We shouldn鈥檛 mourn the demotion of Archaeopteryx鈥�
FOR 150 years Archaeopteryx has been iconic as the earliest bird. The fossil sports feathered wings but a dinosaur鈥檚 teeth and tail. Now the discovery of a feathered dinosaur in China has prompted a reassessment that has left Archaeopteryx squarely in dinosaur territory.
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The diminutive new fossil, Xiaotingia zhengi, recently acquired by the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature from a fossil dealer, was excavated from 160-million-year-old rocks in Liaoning province (see the fossil here). It shares several key anatomical features with Archaeopteryx, including a 鈥渒illing claw鈥� on its second toe, and long and robust arms that probably allowed it to glide.
However, a team led by Xing Xu at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing deemed it sufficiently distinct from birds to be classified as a theropod dinosaur known as a deinonychosaur 鈥� and because of the similarities with Archaeopteryx, Xu鈥檚 team concluded that the 鈥渇irst bird鈥� is a deinonychosaur too (Nature, ).
鈥淲e used to think Archaeopteryx was so different from other dinosaurs that it was ancestral to birds, but recent discoveries show that this is no longer the case,鈥� says Xu. 鈥淥ur main conclusion is that Archaeopteryx is no longer a bird.鈥�
Other palaeontologists give Xu鈥檚 findings a cautious welcome. 鈥淚 am not surprised,鈥� says Gareth Dyke of University College Dublin in Ireland. 鈥淔light may have evolved many times among small bodied theropod dinosaurs.鈥�
If Xu鈥檚 analysis holds up it will create quite a headache for taxonomists as Archaeopteryx is used to define the base of the birds. One solution would be to include deinonychosaurs in the birds, says Luis Chiappe of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California.
