Soon after these discoveries, "Ichthyornis" was recognized for its significance to the theory of evolution recently published by Charles Darwin. Darwin himself told Marsh in an 1880 letter that "Ichthyornis" and "Hesperornis" offered "the best support for the theory of evolution" since he had first published "On the Origin of Species" in 1859. (While "Archaeopteryx" was the first known Mesozoic avialan and is now known to have also had teeth, the first specimen with a skull was not described until 1884). Others at the time also recognized the implications of a nearly modern bird with reptilian teeth, and feared the controversy it caused. One Yale student described various men and women urging Marsh to conceal "Ichthyornis" from the public because it lent too much support to evolutionary theory. Many accused Marsh of having tampered with the fossils or intentionally created a hoax by associating reptilian jaws with the body of a bird, accusations that continued to surface even as late as 1967. However, an overwhelming majority of researchers have demonstrated that Marsh's interpretation of the fossils was correct, and he was fully vindicated by later finds.