An article in the Wall Street Journal documents the continuing collapse of one of Darwinism's favorite missing links. Ever since the 19th century the fossilized remains of a creature named Archeopteryx have been touted as an intermediate animal between dinosaurs and birds, but accumulating evidence is casting grave doubt on whether Archaeopteryx qualifies as a bird at all. Indeed, intelligent design advocates of various stripes, including both young and old earth creationists, have been saying for decades that Archaeopteryx could not have been the ancestor of modern birds, but so much had been invested in this creature as an example of a missing link that few in the mainstream press would listen. Now it seems that the scientific community itself is moon-walking away from their earlier claims of iconic status for Archaeopteryx:
The feathered creature called Archaeopteryx, easily the world's most famous fossil remains, had been considered the first bird since Charles Darwin's day. When researchers put its celebrity bones under the microscope recently, though, they discovered that this icon of evolution might not have been a bird at all.
When the fossils of Archaeopteryx were found in 1861, it helped prove Charles Darwin's new theory of evolution. The creature that had both bird-like and dinosaur-like features has long been thought of as the archetypal bird. But a new study shows Archaeopteryx might not have been a bird at all.
An examination of its bone cells revealed for the first time that the 150-million-year-old creature had the slow growth rate of a dinosaur, not a bird, an international research team reported this month. Comparing it with other early fossils, the researchers concluded that the telltale physiology of modern birds likely didn't emerge until 20 million years or so after Archaeopteryx flapped its broad wings across primordial lagoons.
Newly discovered fossils have prompted scientists to revamp their assumptions about Archaeopteryx's distinguishing features over the last decade. A cornucopia of fossil finds in China demonstrated that feathers coated many dinosaur species, not just birds. Other surprises still may be concealed in trays of unexamined museum specimens. The first and most complete fossil of Archaeopteryx, found in 1855, was misidentified as a flying pterodactylus for 115 years. The newest finding, though, demonstrates that our understanding of even well-studied fossils like Archaeopteryx -- scrutinized, measured, modeled for 150 years -- can still be upended.
The cell structure showed that Archaeopteryx developed one-third as quickly as a typical bird today, more like a normal dinosaur, the researchers reported. Bone cells from the two other bird-like creatures also showed a similar, dinosaur-like growth pattern. The researchers concluded that the first physiologically modern bird was a species called Confuciusornis, which lived about 130 millions years ago -- about 20 million years after Archaeopteryx. Unlike Archaeopteryx, this species didn't have teeth or a reptilian tail.
Modern birds usually mature in a few weeks, but it might have taken Archaeopteryx two years or more, the scientists said. When fully grown, it was the size of a raven and weighed about 900 grams, three times as heavy as previous estimates. "We are going to have to revisit a lot of things on this creature," says Dr. Erickson. "This is not the final word on rewriting its biology."
It might not be a bird, but Archaeopteryx remains a key exhibit in the history of science, as the first step toward understanding avian evolution. All told, researchers have identified 100 anatomical features that birds share with theropod dinosaurs, such as tyrannosaurus or allosaurus.
There are lingering doubts that birds today are descendants of dinosaurs. Researchers at Oregon State University recently argued that the distinctive anatomy that gives birds the lung capacity needed for flight means it is unlikely that birds descended from dinosaurs like Archaeopteryx and its kin (We wrote about this last June)
There's more to this article at the link, but the upshot is that a lot of the stuff you learned in high school biology about evolution ... just isn't true.
RLC
