About 150 million years ago, on islands in a warm lagoon in what is now southern Germany, lived Archaeopteryx, a crow-sized animal with feathered wings, but also teeth, clawed fingers and a long bony tail. The first skeleton, with clear feather impressions, was found in the Solnhofen limestone in 1861, two years after Darwin's Origin of Species, and was hailed as the missing link between reptiles and birds. Since then, discoveries of feathered dinosaurs in China have shown that birds are living dinosaurs, and Archaeopteryx is one of many intermediate forms.
Before and after
- about 372 million years agoLate Devonian extinction
- about 252 million years agoPermian-Triassic mass extinction
- about 225 million years agoThe first mammals appear
- about 201 million years agoTriassic-Jurassic mass extinction
- about 150 million years agoArchaeopteryx, the earliest known bird, lives in Jurassic Bavaria
- about 66 million years agoCretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction
- about 56 million years agoPaleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum
- about 34 million years agoAntarctica freezes over
- about 33.9 million years agoEocene–Oligocene extinction event
More in Evolution & life
- from 56th century BCE to 20th century BCESumer
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 600 BCEBronze Age
- from 3rd millennium BCE to 2nd millenniumMaya civilization
- from 13th century BCE to 6th centuryAncient Greece
- from 1200 to 1523Aztec
- 24 November 1974Discovery of Lucy
The era
This moment belongs to the Mesozoic (252 million years ago to 66 million years ago), the age of dinosaurs.