Ornithurae Ornithurae Ornithurae (meaning "bird tails" in Greek) is a natural group which includes the common ancestor of "Ichthyornis", "Hesperornis", and all modern birds as well as all other descendants of that common ancestor. Ernst Haeckel coined the name in 1866 and included in the group all "true birds" with the "characteristic tail morphology of all extant birds" (translation by Jacques Gauthier). This distinguishes the group from "Archaeopteryx", which Haeckel placed in another new group called Sauriurae. Said simply, modern birds have short, fused pygostyle tails, while "Archaeopteryx" retained the long tail characteristic of non-avian theropod dinosaurs. Gauthier converted Ornithurae into
Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle "Archaeopteryx" fossil specimen and the resulting debate between English paleontologist Richard Owen, an opponent to evolution by natural selection, and Thomas Henry Huxley, an advocate for evolution. Hanson himself visits the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, a small museum in Thermopolis, Wyoming, which had acquired an "Archaeopteryx" specimen. Hanson interviews Richard Prum, the Coe Professor of Ornithology at Yale University, who proposed a developmental theory of feather evolution, which focuses "on how feathers grow and not worrying about what they're used for." Hanson also interviews Alan Feduccia, a professor at the University of North Carolina, who disagrees with the scientific consensus that