Archaeopteryx has been highly prised since the day it was discovered in a German quarry back in 1861. I went to find out why a few weeks ago when I met up with dinosaur expert Angela Milner. Archaeopteryx is an example of evolution really caught in the act. It's half way between a small, meat-eating dinosaur and a bird. The features that tell us that it's a bird are these beautiful impressions of feathers. These are preserved in very very fine grained limestone, so all the detail is there. You can see one hind leg here, As a beautifully preserved foot. Oh, it's got claws. But one of the claws is actually turned round through 90 degrees. So it's actually got a perching claw like modern birds have. Oh, yes. But it's got a long bony tail like a dinosaur. And lastly a very key character in the front of the skull which is actually preserved on the other half of the slab here, you can see little tiny teeth in the front of the jaws, and those teeth are the same as you find in small meat-eating dinosaurs, so it's a marvellous mosaic of characters between a dinosaur and a bird.


自1861年在德国某矿场出土以来，这块始祖鸟化石便蜚声国际。几周前，为了弄清它成名之因，我前去拜访恐龙专家安吉拉·米尔纳， 始祖鸟的存在，是进化论的明证。它是小型肉食恐龙进化至鸟类的桥梁，它具有鸟类特征，美丽丰满的双翼，它们在细晶石灰岩中保存完好，毛发根根分明，看它这只腿，保存完好的脚部多美 -它有爪子 其中一趾倒钩，与胫骨垂直，和现代的鸟爪很像 -没错 但它尾骨很长，这点又像恐龙。最后还有一点很重要，头骨的前部，在这一块石板上，可以看到颌骨前方的细小牙齿。这种牙齿和小型肉食恐龙的牙齿相同，所以始祖鸟身上，汇集了恐龙和鸟类的特征。