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.