Controversy with the ancient bird:
Could it fly? Some say that it
lived in trees and needed the height to be able to fly, BUT it has also
been debated that the paleoenvironmental interpretation for the Solnhofen
lagoons (Germany) were not surrounded by forests but by sparse small plants
which at the most reached 3 m in height. This would mean that the ancient
bird would have had to run really fast to take off for flight, like a super
chicken or an ostrich that could fly. In an article in the October '95
of the NATURE magazine the authors discussed a recent discovery of avian
remains close to the age of Archaeopteryx
in the Liaoning Province of northeastern China. It gave direct evidence
for a diversification of Archaeopteryx-like
birds with good climbing ability, but limited power of flight. Not only
does this evidence support such a radiation
but
it also demonstrates that its members were geographically widespread by
the Late Jurassic. This important discovery can help to support both theories
of how they flew, which simply means that the ancient bird lived in many
different environments and adapted to its environment so that it could
fly, Whether it had strong legs to run fast or used the sharp claws on
its thumb to climb. Still, the only consistency among most palaeontologists,
is that the ancient bird was able to execute some sort of flight.