Page 645 - Atlas of Creation Volume 2

Harun Yahya

has claws on its wings, just like Archaeopteryx. Another structure peculiar
to birds called the "pygostyle," which supports the tail feathers, was
also found in Confuciusornis. 106 In short, this fossil—which is the
same age as Archaeopteryx, which was previously thought to be the
earliest bird and was accepted as a semi-reptile—looks very much

like a bird of today. This fact has invalidated all the evolutionist the-
ses claiming Archaeopteryx to be the primitive ancestor of all birds.
Another fossil unearthed in China caused even greater confu-
sion. In November 1996, the existence of a 130-million-year-old bird
named Liaoningornis was announced in Science by L. Hou, L. D. Martin,
and Alan Feduccia. Liaoningornis had a breastbone to which the muscles

for flight were attached, just as in birds of our day. 107 This bird was indistin-
guishable from birds of our day in other respects, too. The only difference was the Just like Archaeopteryx, there
teeth in its mouth. This showed that birds with teeth did not possess the primi- are claw-like nails on the
wings of the bird
tive structure alleged by evolutionists. That Liaoningornis had the features of a
Opisthocomus hoazin, which
bird of our day was stated in an article in Discover, which said, "Whence came
lives in our own time.
the birds? This fossil suggests that it was not from dinosaur stock." 108
Another fossil that refuted the evolutionist claims regarding Archaeopteryx was Eoalulavis. The wing struc-
ture of Eoalulavis, which was said to be some 25 to 30 million years younger than Archaeopteryx, was also ob-
served in slow-flying birds of our day. 109 This proved that 120 million years ago, there were birds
indistinguishable from birds of our day in many respects, flying in the skies.
These facts once more indicate for certain that neither Archaeopteryx nor other ancient birds similar to it

were transitional forms. The fossils do not indicate that different bird species evolved from each other. On the
contrary, the fossil record proves that today's birds and some archaic birds such as Archaeopteryx actually lived
together at the same time. It is true that some of these bird species, such as Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis,
have become extinct, but the fact that only some of the species that once existed have been able to survive down

to the present day does not in itself support the theory of evolution.

Archaeoraptor: The Dino-Bird Hoax

Unable to find what they were looking for in Archaeopteryx, the advocates of the theory of evolution pinned
their hopes on some other fossils in the 1990s and a series of reports of so-called "dino-bird" fossils appeared in
the world media. Yet it was soon discovered that these claims were simply misinterpretations, or, even worse,
forgeries.
The first dino-bird claim was the story of "feathered dinosaur fossils unearthed in China," which was put
forward in 1996 with a great media fanfare. A reptilian fossil called Sinosauropteryx was found, but some evolu-

tionist paleontologists who examined the fossil said that it had bird feathers, unlike known reptiles.
Examinations conducted one year later, however, showed that the fossil actually had no structure similar to a
bird's feather. A Science article titled "Plucking the Feathered Dinosaur" stated that the structures named as
"feathers" by evolutionary paleontologists definitely had nothing to do with feathers:

Exactly 1 year ago, paleontologists were abuzz about photos of a so-called "feathered dinosaur," which were
passed around the halls at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. The Sinosauropteryx

specimen from the Yixian Formation in China made the front page of The New York Times, and was viewed by
some as confirming the dinosaurian origins of birds. But at this year's vertebrate paleontology meeting in
Chicago late last month, the verdict was a bit different: The structures are not modern feathers, say the roughly

half-dozen Western paleontologists who have seen the specimens. ...Paleontologist Larry Martin of Kansas
University, Lawrence, thinks the structures are frayed collagenous fibers beneath the skin—and so have nothing
to do with birds. 110

A yet more sensational case of dino-bird hype broke out in 1999. In its November 1999 issue, National
Geographic published an article about a fossil specimen unearthed in China which was claimed to bear both

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