Specimens of Archaeopteryx in 1860 or 1861 and described in 1861 by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer. The fossil consists of two counterslabs, designated BSP 1869 VIII 1 (main slab) and MB.Av.100 (counterslab). Its two counterslabs are currently located at the Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology and Geology of Munich University and the Natural History Museum in Berlin, respectively. This feather is generally assigned to "Archaeopteryx" and was the initial holotype, but whether it actually is a feather of this species or another, as yet undiscovered, avialan is unknown. There are some indications it is not from the same animal as most of
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