The Rediscovery of Archaeopteryx

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The Rediscovery of Archaeopteryx or How the most famous fossil in the world changes the tree of life (Volume I, Non-rigid eggs in the bird lineage: ISBN 978-989-20-8543-2 Search this book on . and Volume II, Archaeopteryx’s hatchlings: ISBN 978-989-20-8479-1 Search this book on .) is the result of immense and deep scientific research that shows the world a new vision and a different perspective that no one had ever thought of.

Context

File:Archaeopteryx under new nesting perspective.jpg

The Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx is shown on the left in its current display position and on the right in its nesting position as suggested by M. Jorge Guimarães.

The Berlin Archaeopteryx fossil became the icon of the theory of evolution, featuring an animal representing a transitional stage that preceded the appearance of today’s birds.

Discovery

This new discovery consisted in the pursuit of this disruptive hypothesis that the fossilized pose of the Berlin specimen – the most famous of all specimens of this Jurassic animal, for which reason it is also known as the Mona Lisa of fossils – corresponds to the nesting posture of an animal that died in its nest about 150 million years ago in some land area within the Jurassic archipelago that existed in the Solnhofen Limestone region, in present day Germany, rather than being the carcass of an animal that sunk into the bottom of one of its lagoons.

Among the findings that resulted from the examination of this secret-bearing amazing fossil are one egg-enclosed fetus with a toothed beak, an animal with a toothed beak and typical Archaeopteryx wing anatomy exiting a hatching egg, and egg-free hatchlings with exceptional surface body morphology preservation.

Description of the findings

In the Archaeopteryx specimen in Berlin was revealed, for the first time in 140 years, that:

The upper body of a winged and beaked animal with fossilized bones extends from the ventral side of the Berlin specimen’s thorax. Among its very small bones are elongated scapulae and hatchet-like coracoids, as seen in Archaeopteryx.

Three other beaked animals in its vicinity show surface morphology preservation, one of which is visible from head to tail, all fossilized in a clinging pose, demonstrating that Archaeopteryx hatchlings displayed clinging behavior.

Two similar animals were identified next to each other in the Teylers specimen’s fossil. One of these fossilized after dying while it was hatching from its egg. Its third wing finger crosses underneath the second as in Archaeopteryx. The other shows surface morphology preservation of the torso, head and part of one forelimb (including a finger claw), trachea, tail feathers, and structures that almost certainly correspond to both erupted and non-erupted teeth.

A disarticulated wing that is similar to that observed in one of the Teylers hatchlings was discovered in the fossil of the isolated Archaeopteryx feather, representing the first association between this isolated feather and Archaeopteryx animals.

As a result, a continuum in the late stages of development of Archaeopteryx is exposed that is unprecedented among vertebrates from the Mesozoic (the time interval that included the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods) and was verified in more than one specimen.

The position of the animal and all the eggs and hatchlings that are found around it reveal that this was a nesting site, not a random place where the bird sunk.

These findings turn these fossils into still-lives from the Jurassic.

Documentation

In Volume I (ISBN 978-989-20-8543-2 Search this book on .) of The Rediscovery of Archaeopteryx - Non-rigid eggs in the bird lineage, published in June 2018, the author introduced his nesting hypothesis and how he rediscovered the Berlin and Teylers specimens of Archaeopteryx as those of nesting animals who died and fossilized in their nests over non-rigid eggs. The relevance of Archaeopteryx eggs being non-rigid, as opposed to today's rigid bird eggs, is explored in that volume and indicated as the initial finding in a series that will result in a new view of the tree of life.

In Volume II (ISBN 978-989-20-8479-1 Search this book on .) of The Rediscovery of Archaeopteryx - Archaeopteryx’s hatchlings, also published in June 2018, the author described fossilized hatchlings in both of these two historic fossils, the Berlin and Teylers specimens, some in functional poses and with surface morphology preservation, and some even hatching from their eggs.

Volume III, which is expected to be published in 2019, was announced to describe the nest of the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx in detail, including an estimate of the total number of eggs that it contained.

Conclusion

The results imply that Archaeopteryx nested on the ground and that feathered wings might have evolved in association with the needs of a ground nest and not primarily for flight, a capacity that would have developed secondarily. Tree nesting would have appeared later, too.

This is certainly a revolutionary approach to our understanding of the Jurassic and evolution in general; it also awakens us to the very certainty that we still have much to discover and change.  

This scientific study resulted in a book series on evolution triggered by the rediscovery of the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx.

The detail of previously unnoticed preserved structures in the Mona Lisa of fossils after 140 years on exhibition before millions of visitors and scrutiny by generations of researchers suggests that fossils may contain much more information than ever imagined. This research and its results are living proof of that.

External links

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