After Saturday, the Field Museum’s newest dinosaur fossil will be off display until fall while staff works on building a permanent exhibit for the Chicago Archaeopteryx.
Archaeopteryx
The Field Museum ushered in a new era of scientific exploration with Monday’s unveiling of the Chicago Archaeopteryx.
Only 13 specimens of Archaeopteryx — and one special feather — are known to exist since the first Archaeopteryx fossils were discovered in 1860. Most come from the same deposit of Solnhofen Limestone in Bavaria, Germany.
Shake any family tree, and a few skeletons are bound to fall out — that’s as true for birds as it is for people. Except that for birds, the wacky cousin lurking in one of those branches is T. Rex.
The Field formally announced to the world what had become a not-so-well-kept secret: The museum had acquired just the 13th specimen known to exist of Archaeopteryx, a fossil often described as the “missing link” between dinosaurs and birds.
WTTW News sat down with paleornithologist Jingmai O’Connor and talked about dinosaurs, birds, the Chicago Archaeopteryx, evolution and why studying fossil birds is more important now than ever.
