Archaeopteryx lithographica
Birds are the modern descendants of dinosaurs, but the exact details of the family tree are controversial.
the winged creature found in German fossil beds whose name means "first from a feather," was long thought to be the first bird. Last summer, a Nature paper
by Xu Xing, of China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, claimed that Archaeopteryx was related to birds but actually belonged on a separate branch of the tree, with other bird-like dinosaurs. Scientists still debate the rightful place of Archaeopteryx in the dinosaur-bird lineage, but what’s undisputed are Xu's contributions to paleontology. He has named 60 dinosaur species, more than any other living paleontologist, and his stamping grounds are the fossil beds of Liaoning Province, northeast of Beijing, where many of the feathered dinosaurs and early birds were discovered. Kerri Smith enumerates Xu Xing's contributions to the study of birds and their ...
