Creatures In the Skys Film

Archaeopteryx was one of the world’s much ancient birds. It lived @ 150 million years ago. It was a pigeon sized species. At present there are @ 9,000 known bird species.
The first flying vertebrates were the pterosaurs of the Jurassic Period. These animals had membrane covered wings derived from the their front limbs. The largest measured more than 30 feet in wingspread. Many were covered with fur.
In 1861 in Bavaria southern Germany in the Solenhofen lime stone deposits the first fossils of Archaeopteryx were found. A student of these fossils is Dr. Peter Valenhopfer of the Bavarian State Museum. The first fossil found was a single feather. The second was complete but had no head. The third
was a total specimen which clearly showed the presence of feathers.
The early fossils were finally sent to the British Museum of Natural History and evaluated Sir. Richard Owen a renowned paleontologist. He saw the distinctive collar bone known only in birds and thus declared the fossils as birds. The collar bone of birds is the wish bone properly called the furcula.
In South America along the Orinoco River of Venezuela today there is a primitive bird much like Archaeopteryx called the Hoatzin. Like Archaeopteryx at least in the young there are claws on the wings used for climbing in vegetation.
Dr. Larry Martin of The University of Kansas is a strong advocate of the idea that a primitive reptile called Lagosuchus is the ancestor of birds.
Dr. John Ostrum of Yale University holds the position that a small dinosaur called Compsognathus was a direct ancestor of birds. It is now well documented that in fact dinosaurs which were warm blooded were in fact the ancestors of birds.
Feathers, scales, and insect exoskeletons are made of a protein called chitin.
Dr. Allen Feduchio of the University of North Carolina is a student of Archaeopteryx feathers and has proven that their structure is like that of modern birds. Which means that Archaeopteryx was not the earliest bird.
. Dr. Akira Ozuma of the University of Tokyo wind tunnel tests feather shapes.
. Dr. Lau Chin Gao of the Natural History Museum of Bejing, China has found fossils of other ancient birds. In Leoning, China in 1992 a 4 1/2 inch species called Cynoris was excavated. It was similar to Archaeopteryx but had a shorter tail and more distinct breast bone.
Agrias butterflies of the Amazon Basin are noted for many color varieties all arising from three basic color forms. These rare butterflies are baited by using overripe bananas on the end of sticks stuck in the ground.
Dr. Kimiji Uisugi of Okinawa University studies the mimicry relationships of Polytes Swallowtails and the poisonous swallowtail called Benemonaga.
Dr. George Whitfield of Reading University in England studies the flight capabilities of Pteradactyloid dinosaurs. He indicates that they were superb gliding thermal soaring animals.
It is estimated that there are @ 30 million species of animals known on earth today.