BioConcepts

archaeopteryxArchäopterix (ger.)

• The oldest known fossil bird, having a long vertebrate tail. (OED 2012)
  category fossil

  1861

  Zur Bezeichnung des Thieres halte ich die Benennung Archæopteryx lithographica geeignet.

  Meyer, H. von (1861). [Brief an die Redaktion vom 30. Sept. 1861]. Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Geologie und Petrefaktenkunde 1861, 678-679: 679; cf. id. (1862) Archæopteryx lithographica aus dem lithographischen Schiefer von Solnhofen. Palæontographica 10, 53-56.

  1866

  Not long ago, palaeontologists maintained that the whole class of birds came suddenly into existence during the eocene period; but now we know, on the authority of Professor Owen, that a bird certainly lived during the deposition of the upper greensand; and still more recently, that strange bird, the Archeopteryx, with a long lizard-like tail bearing a pair of feathers on each joint, and with its wings furnished with two free claws, has been discovered in the Oolitic slates of Solenhofen.

  Darwin, C. (1859/66). On the Origin of Species. 367.