New species of "missing link" between dinosaurs and identified birds

Nicknamed "The Icon of Evolution" and the "missing link" between dinosaurs and birds, Archeopteryx has become one of the most famous fossil discoveries of paleontology.

Today, within an international team of scientists, researchers at the University of Manchester have identified a new species of archeopteryx that is close to the evolution of modern birds. .

Dr. John Nudds, of the School of Earth Sciences and the University Environment, and the team have reexamined one of the 12 known specimens by performing the first synchrotron examination, a form of 3D X-ray analysis, of an archeopteryx.

With this new understanding, the team says that this fossil of archeopteryx, called "specimen number eight", is physically much closer to a modern bird than a reptile. Therefore, it is sufficiently distinctive and evolutionary to be described as a new species: Archeopteryx albersdoerferi.

The research, which is published in the journal Historical biology, explains that some of the different skeletal features of Archeopteryx albersdoerferi include cranial bone fusion, different elements of the chest belt and wings, and a reinforced configuration of carpals and metacarpuses (hand).

These characteristics are more observed in modern flying birds and not in older species of Archeopteryx lithographica, which is more like reptiles and dinosaurs.

Specimen number eight is the youngest of 12 known specimens, about half a million years old. This age difference from other specimens is a key factor in describing it as a new species.

Dr. Nudds explains, "By digitally dissecting the fossil, we found that this specimen was different from all the others, it had skeletal adaptations that would have allowed for a much more efficient flight, and in a nutshell we discovered what the Archeopteryx lithographica evolved into a more advanced bird, better adapted to flight – and we have described it as a new species of Archeopteryx. "

Archeopteryx has been described for the first time as the "missing link" between reptiles and birds in 1861 – and is now considered the link between dinosaurs and birds. Only 12 specimens have been found and all come from the late Jurassic of Bavaria, now Germany, dating back about 150 million years.

The lead author, Dr. Martin Kundrát, of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, Slovakia, said: "It is the first time that many bones and teeth of Archeopteryx are seen in all their aspects, including the exposure of their internal structure.The use of synchrotron microtomography was the only way to study the specimen because it is highly compressed with many fragmented bones partially or completely hidden in limestone ".

Dr. Nudds added, "Whenever a missing link is discovered, it just creates two missing links: what was before and what was after! What was before was discovered in 1996 with the dinosaurs at Feathers in China Our new species is what happened This confirms Archeopteryx as the first bird, and not as one of the many feathered theropod dinosaurs that some authors have recently suggested.This could be said to bring Archeopteryx back to its place as the first bird! "

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More information:
Martin Kundrát et al. The first specimen of Archeopteryx from the Mörnsheim Formation in Upper Jurassic Germany, Historical biology (2018). DOI: 10.1080 / 08912963.2018.1518443