Feather a dromaeosaurid found in the Yixian formation (124.6 MYA). Previously, a temporal paradox existed in the evolution of feathers—theropods with highly derived bird-like characteristics occurred at a later time than "Archaeopteryx"—suggesting that the descendants of birds arose before the ancestor. However, the discovery of "Anchiornis huxleyi" in the Late Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation (160 MYA) in western Liaoning in 2009 resolved this paradox. By predating "Archaeopteryx", "Anchiornis" proves the existence of a modernly feathered theropod ancestor, providing insight into the dinosaur-bird transition. The specimen shows distribution of large pennaceous feathers on the forelimbs and tail, implying that pennaceous feathers spread to
Archaeopteryx It was on display for the first time with six other original fossils of "Archaeopteryx" at the Munich Mineral Show in October 2009. The Daiting Specimen was subsequently named "Archaeopteryx albersdoerferi" by Kundrat et al. (2018). Another fragmentary fossil was found in 2000. It is in private possession and, since 2004, on loan to the Bürgermeister-Müller Museum in Solnhofen, so it is called the Bürgermeister-Müller Specimen; the institute itself officially refers to it as the "Exemplar of the families Ottman & Steil, Solnhofen". As the fragment represents the remains of a single wing of "Archaeopteryx", the popular name of this