Specimens of Archaeopteryx the results of his investigation was a talk at the Royal Society in London in November, and was published as an abstract in the Proceedings of the Royal Society the following year. Here he considered the single feather described by von Meyer in 1861 and assigned the new skeleton the same genus. Owen speculated possible short- and long-tailed forms of "Archaeopteryx" and on these grounds assigned the London specimen the species name "macrura", meaning "long-tailed". Owen, who published a monograph on the specimen in 1863, generally considered the animal to be a bird despite describing its structure and proportions as
Archaeopteryx are limited to a sort of "proto-down" not dissimilar to that found in the dinosaur "Sinosauropteryx": decomposed and fluffy, and possibly even appearing more like fur than feathers in life (although not in their microscopic structure). These occur on the remainder of the body—although some feathers did not fossilize and others were obliterated during preparation, leaving bare patches on specimens—and the lower neck. There is no indication of feathering on the upper neck and head. While these conceivably may have been nude, this may still be an artefact of preservation. It appears that most "Archaeopteryx" specimens became embedded in anoxic