Specimens of Archaeopteryx feather's earlier discovery, von Meyer made the London fossil the type specimen of the genus ("Archaeopteryx") and species ("lithographica"), establishing it as the exemplar of the species' features. Its discovery and subsequent descriptions, a mere handful of years after Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", fulfilled the hope of a truly transitional form in its then-unique amalgamation of bird and reptilian characters. The specimen is preserved on two counter slabs broken originally into four pieces. The main, overlaying slab contains most of the skeletal elements, while only impressions and a few bone fragments are visible on the counter slab. This
Specimens of Archaeopteryx the feather. "Archaeopteryx lithographica" was initially named for this original feather, rather than the full skeleton that was found around the same time, and the feather was originally the formal type specimen and holotype for the species. There are obvious problems with this idea, such as the fact that the feather may have come from a juvenile, or possibly another species altogether. The distal obtuse angle at the tip is not a feature found on the feathers of any other "Archaeopteryx" skeleton with integument imprints. It is possible, however, that the strange angle of the tip is an artifact caused