Archaeopteryx and the first birds
c. 150 million years ago · Event
In the lagoons of Jurassic Bavaria lives a crow-sized animal with feathered wings, a wishbone — and teeth, clawed fingers and a long bony tail. Found in 1861, two years after On the Origin of Species, Archaeopteryx was evolution's most timely exhibit: the half-dinosaur, half-bird that showed where birds come from. Every pigeon and penguin is a surviving dinosaur.
On these timelines: The Age of Dinosaurs, Master
More from The Age of Dinosaurs
- Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction (66000000 BCE)
- Tyrannosaurus rex (68000000 BCE)
- Mesozoic Era (252000000 BCE)
- Paleozoic Era (541000000 BCE)
- Jurassic Period (201000000 BCE)
- Cretaceous Period (145000000 BCE)
- Triassic Period (252000000 BCE)
- Permian Period (299000000 BCE)
Around 150000000 BCE
- First flowering plants (140000000 BCE)
- Stegosaurus (155000000 BCE)
- Diplodocus (154000000 BCE)
- Brachiosaurus (154000000 BCE)
- Brontosaurus (152000000 BCE)
- Allosaurus (155000000 BCE)