Awwww! Poor Archy!!!!!

[Kyuuketsuki]

Oh dear, poor Archy might be for the high jump ... I like Archy

Showing off isn't just for the birds
WORLD OF SCIENCE - BOB BROCKIE
The Dominion Post | Monday, 17 November 2008

Chinese palaeontologists recently unearthed an astonishing fossil â€" a dinosaur with long, long tail feathers.

Chipping away at 160-million- year-old rock from Inner Mongolia, a team led by a Dr Fucheng Zhang uncovered this pigeon-sized reptile with four long ribbon-like feathers streaming from its tail. The creature's body was also covered in feathers.

They've named the fossil epidexipteryx â€" Greek for "display feather". The animal had four strong legs, but no sign of wings or flight feathers. It also had good grasping, perching feet, so probably spent a lot of time in trees.

Scientists suppose that this little dinosaur was warm-blooded and grew feathers to keep itself warm.

They guess that the creature was a male, whose spectacular tail feathers served as ornaments or signalling devices, as they do with many present-day cock birds such as peacocks, pheasants and roosters.

Epidexipteryx had jaws full of sharp protruding teeth and must have been an impressive ankle-biter. Attention Weta Workshop! You could run this little guy in your next Jurassic King Kong 2.

Until recently, everybody believed that only birds had feathers. If palaeontologists turned up a fossil feather, it was presumed to have come from a bird.

But in the 1990s, Chinese scientists unearthed a succession of dinosaurs with feathers. The first was a strange turkey-sized reptile with huge legs, feathered wings and tail feathers but the creature could neither fly nor glide. Its feathers were only signalling ornaments.

Scores more feathered dinosaurs have since turned up, including a gliding species with four feathered wings. We are now sure that feathers evolved millions of years before wings did. The feathers served to keep the animals warm or show off their mating prowess, long before feathers were used to fly with.

These discoveries have forced scientists to change their definition of a bird to include not just any feathers, but "flightworthy" feathers. (Where does that leave our flightless kiwi and moa?)

Since Darwin's day, the creature archaeopteryx was supposed to be a missing evolutionary link between reptiles and birds, as it had teeth and a long bony tail like a lizard, but had feathered wings. Recent, closer examination shows that it had only gliding feathers, not flightworthy feathers.

So archaeopteryx has been relegated to a dead-end reptile and had nothing to do with the ancestry of modern birds.

Sniff!

[Read The Rest Of The Article Here]

Kyu

[PipeBox]

Oh, wow, thanks for the article, Kyu.

But seriously, what's with the name epidexipteryx?   Meaning is one thing, but I place being able to pronounce it just above that.  Maybe I'm the only one that's going to mispronounce that, but I have a feeling that anyone who has the misfortune of needing to say it on a documentary is going to need a few retakes.  

[Kyuuketsuki]

And bummer about Archy.  Imagining loads of concept art with ankle-biter pigeons just isn't the same.  

LOL ... Archy wasn't all that big though was he?

Kyu

[Stoicheion]

lol my screen name's greek and i can barely pronounce it.

But this is a fascinating article. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. It shows the true marvel of evolution.

[MariaEvri]

even I ahve a slight problem pronouncing it
But i gues not as hard as u guys since I am greek
epidexipteryx heh

[curiosityandthecat]

I want one! I want one! I want one!

[PipeBox]

And bummer about Archy.  Imagining loads of concept art with ankle-biter pigeons just isn't the same.  

[DennisK]

I want one! I want one! I want one!

If you look for a mosquito trapped in amber at the same stratus of earth of the fossil, there's a good chance you can make your own.  I've seen it done.

[nikkixsugar]

I want one! I want one! I want one!

If you look for a mosquito trapped in amber at the same stratus of earth of the fossil, there's a good chance you can make your own.  I've seen it done.

I keep telling people Jurassic Park was based on science, but they just won't listen!

[Wechtlein Uns]

Don't worry. They're working on the hong kong wal-mart release as we speak. Damn chinese get everything first...