As luck would have it, the next couple of years saw a series of spectacular discoveries at the limestone deposits of Solnhofen, Germany--complete, exquisitely preserved fossils of an ancient creature, Archaeopteryx, that seemed to be the perfect "missing link" between dinosaurs and birds.
Since then, more convincing transitional forms (such as Sinosauropteryx) have been found, but none have had as profound an impact as this pigeon-sized dinosaur.
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| Archaeopteryx lithographica, specimen displayed at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. (This image shows the original fossil - not a cast.) |