古生物学

Charlotte Stoddart：The fossil that launched a dinosaur revolution

始祖鸟

It goes back to the middle of the 19th century—a hundred years before Ostrom’s paper was published. When the idea of birds evolving from ancient reptiles, possibly dinosaurs, was first suggested, it was radical and controversial. Not least because the very idea of one species evolving from another was new and fiercely debated. Charles Darwin’s treatise On the Origin of Species by [Means of] Natural Selection, was published in 1859. Two years later, the first specimens of Archaeopteryx were discovered in Germany. One of those specimens ended up in London, where Darwin’s friend and champion Thomas Henry Huxley examined it. He made a connection between Archaeopteryx, which he classified as a kind of bird, and reptiles, including dinosaurs like Compsognathus. (pdf)

这可以追溯到19世纪中叶——比奥斯特罗姆的论文发表早了一百年。当鸟类可能从古代爬行动物，可能是恐龙进化的想法首次提出时，它是激进和有争议的。尤其是因为一个物种从另一个物种进化的想法是新的且激烈争论的。查尔斯·达尔文的论文《物种起源》于1859年出版。两年后，在德国发现了第一批始祖鸟标本。这些标本中的一件最终被送到了伦敦，达尔文的朋友和支持者托马斯·亨利·赫胥黎检查了它。他将始祖鸟与爬行动物（包括像小型肉食恐龙）联系了起来，并将其归类为一种鸟类。

Charlotte Stoddart 强调始祖鸟化石在兽脚类恐龙到鸟类演化中的关键地位，一个有趣的历史巧合是，达尔文的进化论与始祖鸟化石几乎在同一时间出现。