Origin of avian flight Origin of avian flight Around 350 BCE, Aristotle and other philosophers of the time attempted to explain the aerodynamics of avian flight. Even after the discovery of the ancestral bird "Archaeopteryx" over 150 years ago, debates still persist regarding the evolution of flight. There are three leading hypotheses pertaining to avian flight: Pouncing Proavis model, Cursorial model, and Arboreal model. "Archaeopteryx", the oldest known ancestor of modern birds, could provide clues to the origin of avian flight. In March 2018, scientists reported that "Archaeopteryx" was likely capable of flight, but in a manner substantially different from that of modern birds.
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