Taking Wing Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight

In 1861, just a few years after the publication of Charles Darwin'sOn the Origin of Species,a scientist named Hermann von Meyer made an amazing discovery. Hidden in the Bavarian region of Germany was a fossil skeleton so exquisitely preserved that its wings and feathers were as obvious as its reptilian jaws and tail. This transitional creature offered tangible proof of Darwin's theory of evolution.Hailed as the First Bird,Archaeopteryxhas remained the subject of heated debates for the last 140 years. Are birds actually living dinosaurs? Where does the fossil record really lead? Did flight originate from the "ground up" or "trees down"? Pat Shipman traces the age-old human desire to soar above the earth and to understand what has come before us.Taking Wingis science as adventure story, told with all the drama by which scientific understanding unfolds.

Pat Shipman, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University, is the author of The Evolution of Racism and, with Alan Walker, The Wisdom of the Bones. She has written extensively on evolution and anthropology for such magazines as Discover, Natural History, New Scientist, and Focus. She lives in State College, Pennsylvania.

Contents

Prologue: A Flight of Fancy
Chapter 1: Taking Wing
Chapter 2: What's the Flap?
Chapter 3: Flight Plan
Chapter 4: Nesting Sites
Chapter 5: A Bird in the Hand
Chapter 6: Birds of a Feather
Chapter 7: On the Wing
Chapter 8: One Fell Swoop
Chapter 9: Dragons Fly
Chapter 10: Pathways to the Skies
Chapter 11: Flying High
Chapter 12: The Tangled Wing
Notes
Bibliography
Index