Archaeopteryx lithographica tangles with the devil

Proof of "a threshold species between modern birds and their prehistoric dinosaur relatives" hanging out with Mephistopheles in Flight. Though don't take my use of the word "proof" too sincerely.

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Archaeopteryx lithographica

(Berlin Specimen)

[Convergences #33]

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Eugène Delacroix, Mephistopheles in Flight

An excerpt from R.A. Villanueva, the contributor of the images and mini-narrative to Lawrence Weschler's Convergences series:

Those who, generally speaking, follow the gospel of Darwin assign special significance to the Archaeopteryx as a liminal fossil--proof of a threshold species between modern birds and their prehistoric dinosaur relatives quite literally "set in stone." One might be surprised to note, then, that many of the websites devoted to posting images of the skeleton are not scientific but overtly anti-evolution.

It would seem that creationists have vilified the Archaeopteryx, casting it as a "hoax," a "fraud." What appears to be a feathered reptile pressed into Solnhofen limestone, they counter, is nothing more than a poorly designed "forgery" on par with the Piltdown skull, a conspiracy by scientists who would abuse authority for profit and personal gain....

Full work up: here.

More like this

A lovely new dinosaur fossil from China is described in Nature today: it's named Xiaotingia zhengi, and it was a small chicken-sized, feathered, Archaeopteryx-like beast that lived about 155 million years ago.
Recently, a paper came out with research indicating that Archaeopteryx, the famous feathered fossil, may not be on the bird lineage after all. This paper was discussed briefly in the blogosphere, but I was fairly unsatisfied with the level of treatment it received.
During the 19th century most discussions of the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, focused on its relationship to other fossil reptiles, whether or not it could fly, and what it indicated about the origins of flight.