Question

How do you differentiate modern birds from Archaeopteryx?

Answer 1

To the modern eye, birds do not look like dinosaurs, despite their ancestry. The skeletons of birds have evolved over time, becoming much more lightweight than that of either Compsognathus or Archaeopteryx. This means that the modern bird needs to use much less energy to stay airborne. The heron is the modern bird whose shape perhaps most resembles Compsognathus and Archaeopteryx.

A typical modern bird has lost some features that were common to Compsognathus and Archaeopteryx. It does not have hand claws, toothed jaws, or a bony tail because they would not help it to fly. Instead, the hand only supports the wing feathers, a lightweight horny beak has replaced the teeth, and the tail is a muscular stump controlling a broad surface of feathers.

Archaeopteryx was a primitive bird with feathers, but its fossilised skeleton looks more like that of a small dinosaur. It was about the size of a magpie.

Unlike modern birds it had a full set of teeth, a long bony tail and three claws on its wing which may have been used for grasping branches. It lacked the fully reversed toes which enable many modern birds to perch. However, Archaeopteryx did have a wishbone, wings and asymmetrical 'flight' feathers, like a bird. It is likely that Archaeopteryx could fly, although perhaps not strongly.