LINLYI CITY, China, July 27 (UPI) -- The Archaeopteryx, long considered the oldest and most primitive bird on Earth, might not have been a bird after all, a controversial Chinese study says.
Spectacular fossils of Archaeopteryx were discovered in 1861, an animal with the feathered wings of a bird, but the teeth and tail of a dinosaur.
Paleontologists have long considered the creature as marking the beginning of the evolution of birds and feathered flight.
That view has been challenged by researchers in China who say Archaeopteryx may not have been one of the earliest birds but rather just another feathered dinosaur, Britain's The Guardian newspaper reported.
Xing Xu at Linyi University says a new Archaeopteryx-like fossil from the Tiaojishan Formation in eastern China shares several features with Archaeopteryx, including long, sturdy forelimbs that presumably allowed it to fly.
But when Xu's team reconstructed family trees to create a place for Xiaotingia zhengi, they found the creature belonged not in the lineage of birds, but to a group of dinosaurs called deinonychosaurs, who walked on two legs but did not fly.
More importantly, the researchers said, Archaeopteryx appeared to belong in the same group.
While the finding is tentative, it bolsters the arguments of those doubting the special status of Archaeopteryx following the discovery of other bird-like dinosaurs and dinosaur-like birds over the past decade or so, The Guardian said.
