# Archaeopteryx may not be a bird **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 27, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511 "2011-07-27T17:25:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/61 "2011-07-29T20:18:47Z")
I am not so much suggesting it (the former not the latter), so much as asking if it is an open consideration. As to how modern cladastic systems work, well it would suggest that the clade of birds would have to go much farther back to find a last common ancestor. It is _asking_ if perhaps some modern birds may indeed have lineage that goes to Tyranoptora, let alone less improbably some other lines of Maniraptora, and converged upon the modern forms. The fact that Archaeopteryx may indeed be a representative of a proto-bird appearing creature appearing from a line that diverged relatively early, raises that “bird” as a convergent evolutionary form among several dinosaur lines as a possibility. Again, I suspect that there are reasons why it is not so, but would like to know more than “fear not” as an answer. As to the second, well that depends on where you draw the species line, doesn’t it? We know now, for example, that some sub-populations of Homo Sapiens have some Neandertal genetic contribution mixed in. But, no, that was neither my suggestion or my question. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/62 "2011-07-29T21:07:51Z")
Perhaps it is better phrased as asking whether the last common ancestor of modern birds may have been both featherless and flightless. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/63 "2011-07-30T00:21:57Z")
Alright. I’m going to attempt to answer my own question. Studies of genetic relatedness among modern bird groups establish their evolutionary distance from each other to some significant degree. One study [here](http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/8/20). > [@](#): > > Evolutionary biologists are often misled by convergence of morphology and this has been common in the study of bird evolution. However, the use of molecular data sets have their own problems and phylogenies based on short DNA sequences have the potential to mislead us too. The relationships among clades and timing of the evolution of modern birds (Neoaves) has not yet been well resolved. Evidence of convergence of morphology remain controversial. With six new bird mitochondrial genomes (hummingbird, swift, kagu, rail, flamingo and grebe) we test the proposed Metaves/Coronaves division within Neoaves and the parallel radiations in this primary avian clade … With respect to the overall avian tree, we find the flamingo and grebe are sister taxa and basal to the shorebirds (Charadriiformes). Using a novel site-stripping technique for noise-reduction we found this relationship to be stable. The hummingbird/swift clade is outside the large and very diverse group of raptors, shore and sea birds. Unexpectedly the kagu is not closely related to the rail in our analysis, but because neither the kagu nor the rail have close affinity to any taxa within this dataset of 41 birds, their placement is not yet resolved. … ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/64 "2011-07-30T00:28:52Z")
> [@bup](#): > > The other interpretation of what you’re saying - that somehow, disparate species combined DNA into a new species - that is not correct. Species just differentiate as you move forward in time - they don’t combine. A great many species have combined over time. Our own species, for example, split from Homo erectus into the Sapiens line and the Neanderthal line, and then recombined. There is a large school of thought that suggests a merging with erectus lineages and several other as as well. This merging of related species is extremely common, and we can see it clearly happening even today with animals such as ducks and cattle that humans have been moving around inaddition to mergng of natural populations due to disruption of natural systems, such as the merging of wolf and coyote or grey/blue/humpback whale populations. Amongst plants this merging of lines is the rule rather than the exception, with very few plant species being descended from a single parental species. While lines of descent are often illustrated as a tree, the reality is that the branches often split only to re-merge hundreds of millions of years later. It’s certainly not inconceivable that the modern birds have multiple non-bird ancestors. There is a widely supported hypothesis that all the animals we call “bats” have descended from at least two non-bat ancestors, with the fruit bats descended from a Colugo-type ancestor well after the true bats had already evolved flight. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/65 "2011-08-02T04:12:59Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Is it believed that modern birds all came from one dinosaur line that split off from the other lines relatively late in the game? Yes. In fact, all modern birds are from a relatively late split well within the clade “Aves” as diagramed by Darwin’s Finch, and long after that clade split from the non-avian dinosaurs. There are a number of Cretaceous lineages within the Aves that have become extinct, such as the [Hesperornithes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperornithiformes) and[Enantiornithes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enantiornithes). The ostriches and other ratites along with the partridge-like tinamous are thought to be the sister-group of remaining birds; but they are no more related to non-avian dinosaurs than other birds are. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/66 "2011-08-02T04:24:45Z")
Quoth **Blake** : > [@](#): > > A great many species have combined over time. Our own species, for example, split from Homo erectus into the Sapiens line and the Neanderthal line, and then recombined. There is a large school of thought that suggests a merging with erectus lineages and several other as as well. Doesn’t that depend on how you define “species”, though? Under at least some definitions, the fact that there was a merger would itself be evidence that they were never actually separate species to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/67 "2011-08-02T13:18:17Z")
Neanderthals are _part_ of the sapiens line. Their distinction from _Homo sapiens sapiens_ is certainly much later (and briefer) than the distinction of archaic sapiens from erects. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/68 "2011-08-02T14:12:28Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Is it believed that modern birds all came from one dinosaur line that split off from the other lines relatively late in the game? Is there any consideration that modern birds may be a convergent evolution of _several_ dinosaur lines, an amalgam of older lines? It’s very likely that there used to be several such groups, that when you looked at them flying around covered with feathers, you’d call them birds, but you’d find they weren’t part of the modern bird clade. However, all these bird-like flying feathered lineages went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous. All modern birds turn out to represent a sole surviving closely related group. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/69 "2011-08-02T14:30:00Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > It’s very likely that there used to be several such groups, that when you looked at them flying around covered with feathers, you’d call them birds, but you’d find they weren’t part of the modern bird clade. Like “fish,” it would be possible to use “bird” in a non-taxonomic sense. What we call “fish” colloquially belong to several different clades, including hagfish, lampreys, sharks and rays, bony fish, and lobe-finned fish (and we ourselves are members of the latter clade), so the term has no taxonomic meaning. A “fish” is just an aquatic, gill-breathing vertebrate. Likewise we could call any feathered, flying member of the therapod lineage (or a non-flying descendant of one) a “bird” in a colloquial sense. According to this usage, _Archaeopteryx_ and _Microraptor_ would qualify as birds, even though they don’t belong to the lineage that led to modern birds. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/70 "2011-08-02T14:36:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Doesn’t that depend on how you define “species”, though? Under at least some definitions, the fact that there was a merger would itself be evidence that they were never actually separate species to begin with. I wouldn’t call what happened between _sapiens_ and _neanderthalensis_ a merger, exactly. We have only a few Neanderthal genes, and those are only present in non-African members of _sapiens_. This suggests very limited interbreeding in the Middle East when _sapiens_ first left Africa. During their long period of coexistence in Europe the two lineages seem to have acted as full species. According to the modern interpretation of the Biological Species Concept, the two lineages could still qualify as full species, because hybridization was limited in space and time. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/71 "2011-08-02T14:45:27Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Neanderthals are _part_ of the sapiens line. Their distinction from _Homo sapiens sapiens_ is certainly much later (and briefer) than the distinction of archaic sapiens from erects. No. Neanderthals are still considered a distinct species: _H. neanderthalensis_. They are thought to have split off from our line about 500 -750K years ago. That would predate what is often called “archaic sapiens”. But they are thought to have emerged as a species from that split about 250K years ago. > [@Colibri](#): > > I wouldn’t call what happened between sapiens and neanderthalensis a merger, exactly. We have only a few Neanderthal genes, and those are only present in non-African members of sapiens. This suggests very limited interbreeding in the Middle East when sapiens first left Africa. During their long period of coexistence in Europe the two lineages seem to have acted as full species. According to the modern interpretation of the Biological Species Concept, the two lineages could still qualify as full species, because hybridization was limited in space and time. Has it been established that the interbreeding was restricted to the M.E.? I hadn’t seen that in any of the articles. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/72 "2011-08-02T14:53:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Has it been established that the interbreeding was restricted to the M.E.? I hadn’t seen that in any of the articles. I haven’t looked at the articles recently, but based on the age of the Neanderthal genes in _sapiens_ (that is, when the form of the gene in _sapiens_ split from the form found in Neanderthals) the interbreeding dates from a time when _sapiens_ was restricted to the Middle East (outside of Africa). Also, the genes occur in _sapiens_ populations outside the range of _neanderthalensis_, such as those in east Asia, implying that they were acquired before _sapiens_ spread to these areas. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/73 "2011-08-02T15:19:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No. Neanderthals are still considered a distinct species: _H. neanderthalensis_. Considered by _some_. They are also termed _Homo sapiens neanderthalensis_–a subspecies, as distinct from _H. sapiens sapiens_. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > They are thought to have split off from our line about 500 -750K years ago. That would predate what is often called “archaic sapiens”. But they are thought to have emerged as a species from that split about 250K years ago. My understanding is that the Neanderthal distinction has not been clearly made until 130,000 years ago or so, which may or may not be before the earliest “modern” sapiens depending on interpretation (Herto?), but is certainly _very_ far after _H. erectus_, who is back past 900K. There’s _no way_ that Neanderthals could precede “archaic sapiens” unless you’re defining archaic sapiens out of sapienhood entirely. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/74 "2011-08-02T16:23:18Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Considered by _some_. They are also termed _Homo sapiens neanderthalensis_–a subspecies, as distinct from _H. sapiens sapiens_. Considered by most. But the whole business of defining species for extinct populations is problematic. Still, you don’t see _H. sapiens neanderthalensis_ very often. > [@](#): > > My understanding is that the Neanderthal distinction has not been clearly made until 130,000 years ago or so, which may or may not be before the earliest “modern” sapiens depending on interpretation (Herto?), but is certainly _very_ far after _H. erectus_, who is back past 900K. There’s _no way_ that Neanderthals could precede “archaic sapiens” unless you’re defining archaic sapiens out of sapienhood entirely. The whole “archaic sapiens” concept is very ill defined. I’m really not sure what you’re trying to say here, but _H. erectus_ is usually used for Asian branch of the \*Homo \*line, and that survived until perhaps 30K years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/75 "2011-08-02T17:53:24Z")
Quoth **Colibri** : > [@](#): > > According to the modern interpretation of the Biological Species Concept, the two lineages could still qualify as full species, because hybridization was limited in space and time. I’ve never been fond of these squishifications of the BSC. I mean, breeding within the Neanderthals themselves was also limited in space and time, since they had a limited geographic range and went extinct. Likewise, I also don’t like to call it “speciation” where the _only_ reasons for a lack of interbreeding are geographic, since by that standard, Native Americans and Afreurasians were separate species until contact was re-established. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/76 "2011-08-02T19:04:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Colibri** :I’ve never been fond of these squishifications of the BSC. I mean, breeding within the Neanderthals themselves was also limited in space and time, since they had a limited geographic range and went extinct. Likewise, I also don’t like to call it “speciation” where the _only_ reasons for a lack of interbreeding are geographic, since by that standard, Native Americans and Afreurasians were separate species until contact was re-established. Yes and no. It’s true that there was limited gene flow between Native Americans and the rest of the world for (let’s say) 15k years, but there was limited or no gene flow between Neanderthals/pre-Neanderthals and Sapiens/pre-Sapiens for ~500k years. It would be extremely unusual for a long lived, slow breeding mammal like us to speciate in 15K years. Additionally, Neanderthal morphology falls well outside the morphology of modern humans and there appears to have been a significant cognitive difference between the two populations. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/77 "2011-08-02T19:23:39Z")
Missed the edit window the 2nd time… Finally, there appears to have been a difference in the maturation rate of Neanderthal children wrt modern humans. So, when you put it all together: Geographic isolation, morphological differences, cognitive differences, and differences in maturation rates, then the argument for species designation is pretty strong, and not really in the same ball park as one for saying Native Americans pre-contact should be considered a different species. But in the end, it just comes down to how we choose to define things. Nature doesn’t care one or the other. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/78 "2011-08-03T14:09:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > and there appears to have been a significant cognitive difference Can you expand on this? I would have thought Neanderthal cognition to be an unknown. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/79 "2011-08-03T14:38:51Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Can you expand on this? I would have thought Neanderthal cognition to be an unknown. We can only infer this from the archeological record, but the Neanderthal tool kit was simpler w/ fewer materials used, and appears to have been static over an extended time period. We don’t seen needles, fishhooks or spear throwers, for example. Stone tools, but not bone/antler tools. But more significantly, we don’t see any evidence of representational art. Now, it’s possible that there are items made of wood that simply didn’t survive the fossilization process and that might change our view of the Neanderthal intellect, but the evidence we do have tells us otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2011, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/80 "2011-08-03T14:51:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Colibri** :I’ve never been fond of these squishifications of the BSC. I mean, breeding within the Neanderthals themselves was also limited in space and time, since they had a limited geographic range and went extinct. Likewise, I also don’t like to call it “speciation” where the _only_ reasons for a lack of interbreeding are geographic, since by that standard, Native Americans and Afreurasians were separate species until contact was re-established. All species definitions are necessarily “squishy” since species in their incipient stages are difficult to define. Without such “squishification,” we would be compelled to define wolves and coyotes as the same species, as well as many species of common ducks, since they do sometimes produce fully fertile hybrids in the wild (although such hybridization is limited in space and time). Presuming that the [Aurignacian culture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurignacian)belongs to early modern humans, this implies an overlap of about 10,000 years between sapiens and neanderthalensis in Europe without genetic evidence of interbreeding. This constitutes is a very long period of coexistence over a very wide area; if a similar pattern were found in two contemporary forms of mammals I would hesitate little in calling them good species under the Biological Species Concept. Geographical isolation by itself does not provide evidence of species status. However, Native Americans and Eurasians/Africans show much less genetic and morphological divergence than that between all sapiens and Neanderthals. > [@Sailboat](#): > > Can you expand on this? I would have thought Neanderthal cognition to be an unknown. Neanderthals show very little evidence of art or other kinds of symbolic thought, although there seems to be some. Symbolic thought, decoration, and representational art are a hallmark of modern humans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511.md?page=5)