ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE Archaeopteryx, OR LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
EOLOGICAL Occurrence
(Subclass ArchcBomilhes)
The oldest bird of which we have any knowledge, called the Archaopteryx, or Lizard-tailed bird, the latter name from its slender lizard-like but curiously feathered tail, is found fossil in the lithographic slates of Solenhofen, Bavaria, where its presence was first made known by the discovery in 1861 of the impression of a single feather.
The existence of a bird in a geological horizon of such relatively great antiquity as this — Upper Jurassic — was at first somewhat doubted, but a year or two after the first discovery a second specimen, showing much of the skeleton, was obtained, and in 1877 another, these being all thus far secured. The example found in 1863 is now preserved in the British Museum, London, while the last, and as it proves, best example, is in the Berlin Museum.
These two specimens, which are sometimes regarded as representing two distinct species (Archaopteryx lithographica and A. siemensi), supplement each other, and from them a fairly complete account may be gleaned of this remarkable bird.
They have been very minutely studied by many eminent anatomists, as becomes their importance in affording almost our only actual knowledge of the transition between reptiles and birds.
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