Archaeopteryx – birds from dinosaurs

Birds evolved from a group of small theropod dinosaurs. Fossils of animals intermediate between birds and dinosaurs like Archaeopteryx show a combination of features from both groups. Archaeopteryx lived about 150 million years ago. It had a bony tail, a toothed jaw like a dinosaur and a wishbone like a bird. This reconstruction shows what it might have looked like.

A fossil of Archaeopteryx discovered in 1861 gave important support to the theory of evolution, as an example of an intermediate form between dinosaurs and birds.