CHAPTER ONE From T. Rex to Turkeys It is approximately 160 million years ago MYA in the late Jurassic period 201.3-145 MYA In a forest in the northeastern part of what is now China a long tailed chicken sized animal clings to a tree trunk and scrambles its way upward Its fingers and toes end in claws which are great for climbing but when it reaches a branch it cannot perch Its toe structure is not developed for perching Instead it clings to the branch with its claws When it gets tired of the treetops it extends its arms and legs and glides to the ground The rows of feathers along the length of both its arms and legs form something like four wings Anchioris may have fed on insects
The animal's feathers are not like those of modern birds which have vanes of barbs that zip together and extend from a central shaft Instead they have vanes consisting of short flexible barbs that don't easily stick together This mass of feathers gives the animal a fluffy scruffy appearance These feathers are not very A BIRD LIKE A efficient for flight Although they help with DINOSAUR insulation and repel water they aren't great at Hoatzins don't fit in with other birds According to Audubon writer Elizabeth those jobs either This little animal with its four Deatrick these scruffy Amazon jungle feathered wings is a dinosaur called Anchiornis birds never got the genetic message that they aren't dinosaurs anymore 1 For Although not yet a bird it is well on its way to one thing their chicks have claws just like becoming one Anchiornis's Hoatzins build nests on branches overhanging the water When predators such Paleontologists discovered the first as snakes appear chicks drop from the nest into the safety of the water They swim to land Anchiornis fossils in China in 2009. Since then after the snake leaves then use their claws more than 200 similar fossils have been found to climb the tree and return to the nest The hoatzin's claws disappear in adulthood but One group of scientists has pieced together it remains a clumsy flier for its entire life A descriptions of Anchiornis's structure and 2014 DNA study indicated the hoatzin is most closely related to shorebirds such as cranes movement Others have used a technique and plovers but not very closely related It branched off from other birds approximately 65 MYA
Archaeopteryx Lithographica was the size of a large crow called laser stimulated fluorescence to look at the fossils In the fluorescence technique a laser is pointed at the fossil in a dark room and scientists record the wavelengths of light that bounce off This helped scientists determine Anchiornis's feather coloration a black and gray body white highlights and a red crest ARCHAEOPTERYX The first fossil skeleton to give a clue about bird origins was uncovered in 1861 in southern Germany The bird named Archaeopteryx lithographica lived approximately 150 MYA when
