# Archaeopteryx may not be a bird

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511>\
**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:** 3\
**Page:** 6

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**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 4, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/101 "2011-08-04T17:18:06Z")

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> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> When we found out that chimps make tools, no one expected to find a chimpanzee automobile hidden in the juggle.

Okay, suddenly I’m hearing this in [Don LaFontaine’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_LaFontaine) voice inside my head. And with a lot more capital letters.

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**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 4, 2011, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/102 "2011-08-04T17:20:12Z")

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> [@Sailboat](#):
>
> Okay, suddenly I’m hearing this in [Don LaFontaine’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_LaFontaine) voice inside my head. And with a lot more capital letters.

“In a world…where Chimps make tools…they never expected…”

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**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaeopteryx-may-not-be-a-bird/590511/103 "2011-08-10T01:05:21Z")

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This thread has died down, but I thought I’d resurrect it briefly in light of a new paper that just came out:  
[Assessing Arboreal Adaptations of Bird Antecedents: Testing the Ecological Setting of the Origin of the Avian Flight Stroke](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022292):

> [@](#):
>
> Evolutionary trends immediately prior to the origin of birds indicate skeletal adaptations opposite that expected for arboreal climbers. Results reject an arboreal capacity for the avian stem lineage, thus lending no support for the trees-down model. Support for a fully terrestrial ecology and origin of the avian flight stroke has broad implications for the origin of powered flight for this clade. A terrestrial origin for the avian flight stroke challenges the need for an intermediate gliding phase, presents the best resolved series of the evolution of vertebrate powered flight, and may differ fundamentally from the origin of bat and pterosaur flight, whose antecedents have been postulated to have been arboreal and gliding.

So…yeah. Full paper is available for free from that link.

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