Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 3, 2025
The Archaeopteryx macrurus, Owen, recently acquired by the British Museum, affords a second example of the discovery of the osseous remains of a bird in strata older than the Eocene. It was found in the great quarries of lithographic limestone at Solenhofen in Bavaria, the rock being a member of the Upper Oolite.
In fact, there can be no reasonable doubt that one of the smaller forms of the Ornithoscelida, Compsognathus, the almost entire skeleton of which has been discovered in the Solenhofen slates, was a bipedal animal.
These insects, among which is a libellula, or dragon-fly, must have been blown out to sea, probably from the same land to which the pterodactyls, and other contemporaneous air-breathers, resorted. Tail and feather of Archaeopteryx, from Solenhofen, and tail of living bird for comparison. A. Caudal vertebrae of Archaeopteryx macrura, Owen; with impression of tail- feathers; one-fifth natural size.
Side and upper views of half the lower jaw; and side and end views of a vertebra. Apart from the few fragmentary remains from the English greensand, to which I have referred, the Mesozoic rocks, older than those in which Hesperornis and Ichthyornis have been discovered, have afforded no certain evidence of birds, with the remarkable exception of the Solenhofen slates.
New Genera of fossil Mammalia in the Middle Purbeck of Dorsetshire. Dirt-bed or ancient Soil. Fossils of the Purbeck Beds. Portland Stone and Fossils. Kimmeridge Clay. Lithographic Stone of Solenhofen. Archaeopteryx. Middle Oolite. Coral Rag. Nerinaea Limestone. Oxford Clay, Ammonites and Belemnites. Kelloway Rock. Lower, or Bath, Oolite. Great Plants of the Oolite. Oolite and Bradford Clay.
B. Two caudal vertebrae of same; natural size. C. Single feather, found in 1861 at Solenhofen, by Von Meyer, and called Archaeopteryx lithographica; natural size. E. Profile of caudal vertebrae of same; one-third natural size. e, e. Direction of tail-feathers when seen in profile. f.
Apart from the few fragmentary remains from the English greensand, to which I have referred, the mesozoic rocks, older than those in which Hesperornis and Ichthyornis have been discovered have afforded no certain evidence of birds, with the remarkable exception of the Solenhofen slates.
The bird was the famous Archaeopteryx, found in the Solenhofen slate, and the first butterfly, to use an Irishism, was a moth, a sphinx moth, apparently about the size of the Convolvulus sphinx moth.
Had the lithographic stone of Solenhofen, now regarded as so rich in fossils, been in like manner quarried solely for scientific objects, it would have remained almost a sealed book to palaeontologists, so sparsely are the organic remains scattered through it.
Fragile as they are, however, they have left here and there some faint record of themselves, and in the Museum at Carlsruhe, on a slab from Solenhofen, I have seen a very perfect outline of one which remains undescribed to this day.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking