File:Day 20 - Archaeopteryx (8005637117).jpg

Archaeopteryx lithographica L.3699

We learn about prehistoric plants and animals from their fossil remains. Although there was probably a great variety of prehistoric birds, only a few have been preserved as fossils.

This specimen is a cast purchased by the Manchester Museum in 1898. The original fossil is displayed in the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The Berlin Specimen (HMN 1880) was discovered in 1874 in Bavaria, Germany, by farmer Jakob Niemeyer. He sold this precious fossil for the money to buy a cow in 1876, to inn-keeper Johann Dörr, who again sold it to Ernst Otto Häberlein, the son of K. Häberlein. It was placed on sale and eventually bought by the Humboldt Museum für Naturkunde, where it is now displayed, for 20,000 Goldmark.

The name Archaeopteryx derives from the ancient Greek, litterally meaning 'ancient wing'. Since the late 19th century, it has been generally accepted as being the oldest known bird, though some more recent studies have cast doubt on this assessment, finding that it might instead be a non-avialan dinosaur closely related to the origin of birds.

Archaeopteryx lived in the Late Jurassic Period around 150 million years ago, in what is now southern Germany during a time when Europe was an archipelago of islands in a shallow warm tropical sea, much closer to the equator than it is now. Similar in shape to a European Magpie, with the largest individuals possibly attaining the size of a raven.