The Famous, Fearsome Archaeopteryx Was More Bird Than We Knew

It’s been more than 160 years since Archaeopteryx first shook up science as the missing link—part reptile, part bird—and indicated that today’s pigeons and parakeets are the feathery descendants of dinosaurs. But despite decades of research, there’s still more to learn. Case in point: a newly described fossil, nicknamed the Chicago Archaeopteryx, may be the most detailed and revealing specimen yet. “The most important findings all center around rarely preserved soft tissues. For the first time we see the soft tissue of the hand and foot,” said Jingmai O’Connor, lead author of the new study in Nature and associate curator of fossil reptiles at the Field Museum, in an email to Gizmodo. With that information, paleontologists are getting a more nuanced understanding of the creature than they’ve ever had. “The tissue on the right hand suggests that the two main digits of the hand were not bound together in soft tissue and that the third digit could move independently, supporting long ab ... Read full article.