Archaeopteryx suggested that "Archaeopteryx" was a dinosaur that was no more closely related to birds than were other dinosaur groups. Kurzanov (1987) suggested that "Avimimus" was more likely to be the ancestor of all birds than "Archaeopteryx". Barsbold (1983) and Zweers and Van den Berge (1997) noted that many maniraptoran lineages are extremely birdlike, and they suggested that different groups of birds may have descended from different dinosaur ancestors. The discovery of the closely related "Xiaotingia" in 2011 led to new phylogenetic analyses that suggested that "Archaeopteryx" is a deinonychosaur rather than an avialan, and therefore, not a "bird" under most
Specimens of Archaeopteryx skeleton of a feathered animal from the same lithographic shale deposits, which would later be known as the London specimen. Coincidentally, von Meyer proposed the name "Archaeopteryx lithographica" for the feather, but not for the skeleton. Therefore, the official name of the animal was originally linked to the single feather rather than any actual skeleton, and is formally considered the original holotype. Though 1860 is often the year named for the feather's discovery, there is no proof of this date, and some authors consider it more likely to have been found in 1861, as it seems reasonable that von Meyer's