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• n  extinct primitive toothed bird of the Jurassic period having a long feathered tail and hollow bones; usually considered the most primitive of all birds

• While Protarchaeopteryx's name actually means "before Archaeopteryx" and it is certainly more primitive than the famous European bird ancestor .
• In fact, except for a lack of feathers, corallestris has a strong resemblance to the first true bird, archaeopteryx, which made its appearance toward the end of the age of .
• Another problem the skeptics have with the new fossils is that they date from about 120 million years ago, making them some 30 million years younger than archaeopteryx, the oldest .

• archeopteryx
• Archaeopteryx lithographica

News & Articles

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• Did Iconic Archaeopteryx Lose Its Ability to Fly?
  Although it has long been debated whether the proto-bird Archaeopteryx was able to actually fly or merely evolving toward that ability, to date nobody had yet seriously suggested that it could have... -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  Nov. 13, 2013 - Scientific American

Quotes

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• George Poinar in Hindu
  In archaeology, a lot of people look at the species Archaeopteryx, which is believed to be the first bird and was sort of half-bird, half-reptile,Poinar said. "Species such as that can be critically important in helping us to understand...
• Sankar Chatterjee in Reuters India
  Basically what happened is there is a transition from biplane to monoplane,Chatterjee said. "If you look at Archaeopteryx and all other birds, they have this typical monoplane design."