Notes from the Feathered Dinosaurs exhibit

The first part of the exhibit was an introduction to the history of fossil birds.

Early finds:

• 1844, lizardlike dinosaurs
• around 1870, A flying, toothed bird, 9″ high, with a deep breastbone, from 95 – 65 mya.
• 1870, Hesperornis regalis. Aquatic, toothed bird with no wings, about 3 feet high, found by O. C. Marsh, one of the great early fossil-hunters.
• Archaeopteryx, 145 mya, about 18″ high, found in lithographic (very fine) limestone
• Compsognathus longipes, a bipedal dinosaur from 145 mya.
• 1861, another dinosaur found in lithographic limestone with its head drawn back like a dead bird’s.

By the mid-1800s, Thomas Huxley was suggesting that birds had developed from dinosaurs.

Scene-setting for the bird exhibit:

• at entrance, reconstructions of dinosaurs (Velociraptors and Therizinosaurus) without and then with feathers
• finely preserved fossils from the area where they are found: aquatic lizards, dragonfly, spider

New evidence up to January 2005, including specimens from China:

• flying reptiles, pterosaurs – preserved with wing tissue and protofeathers
• another flying reptile, Eosipterus, with 12′ wingspan, skin (dots) showing follicles, visible fibres around head, and coloured bands showing shades of plumage
• Jeholosaurus shangyuarensis, 125 mya, most primitive bird-hipped dinosaur in China (in its own time, a living fossil known from 60 million years previously)
• Cryptovolans pauli, 125 mya, had flight feathers behind hind feet and may have flown with all four limbs
• Sinosauropteryx heilmanni, feathered therapod (shown in model)
• Scansoriopteryx, “climbing wing,” shown in fossil and model. Has long arms for swinging from branches and claws arranged for climbing. Greatly strengthens “top-down” theory of flight. 186 – 165 mya = 20 to 40 million years older than Archaeopteryx. Has a long ilium but otherwise is less birdlike than Archaeopteryx: Scansoriopteryx has no wishbone but two separate clavicles; and its pubic bone points forward and is smaller than the ischium.
• Deionychus. Small, flying dromaeosaur: we can tell because its scapula and coracoroid bones are at right angles. Tail was stiffened with bony rods as in all dromaeosaurs.
• Sinohydrosaur. Swims
• “Yanbird,” found with Sinohydrosaur. Not yet described. Has pygostyle (reduced tail, “parson’s nose”) like a modern bird [could this be Hongshaniornis?]
• Eoantiornus. 125 mya. Short-faced bird with teeth.
• Liaoxiornis . Virtually a missing link between birds and dinosaurs. Deep chest, wings with very small hands: could fly. Had teeth and a medium-length tail.

See also: Dinosaur-to-bird cladistics and The proof is in the plumage.