Consider, for example, the very famous fossil of a creature called Archaeopteryx (ar kee op' ter iks), which evolutionists want to believe is an intermediate link between reptiles and birds. This fossil is found in Jurassic rock, which (see Figure 9.2) contains remains of dinosaurs as well. In the geological column, Jurassic rock is underneath Cretaceous rock, which is underneath Tertiary rock. Although a few fossilized birds are found in other strata, the vast majority of bird fossils in the fossil record come from either Tertiary rock or the Quaternary rock that lies on top of it. Now remember, according to the assumptions of macroevolutionists, this would mean that birds did not really exist in significant numbers until the times during which Tertiary and Quaternary rock formed. Thus, during the times when Cretaceous and Jurassic rock were forming, macroevolutionists assume that birds had not yet evolved to any significant degree. Since Archaeopteryx is found in Jurassic rock, macroevolutionists conclude that it lived prior to most birds and that it could therefore be one of the transitional forms linking birds to their common ancestor, which is assumed to be some form of reptile. The figure below shows you a picture of the fossil of Archaeopteryx as well as an artist's rendition of what the creature might have looked like.

image

In the vast majority of respects, this creature is a bird. The fossil shows very good imprints of feathers, and analysis of these feather imprints indicates that they are the kinds of feathers you see on birds that are living today. In fact, flightless birds that are living today have different feathers from those of birds that fly, and the fossil imprints indicate that Archaeopteryx had feathers of a flying bird.

In addition, the bones preserved in the fossil are very similar to the bones of birds that are living today. The skull, for example, shows that Archaeopteryx had a brain very similar to flying birds that are living today, and the fossilized inner ear indicates that Archaeopteryx had senses of hearing and balance that are comparable to flying birds that are living today. After performing X-ray scans of the skull and working with computer models, Dr. Timothy Rowe of the University of Texas at Austin said, “This animal had huge eyes and a huge vision region in its brain to go along with that and a great sense of balance. Its inner ear also looks very much like the ear of a modern bird.” (University of Texas at Austin Press Release, August 4, 2004, http://www.utexas.edu/cons/news/imaging.html, retrieved 01/06/05). In addition, paleontologists have been able to confirm bone structures that indicate Archaeopteryx had the same kind of lung design that birds living today have. In the end, then, Archaeopteryx seems to be a bird.

Why do many paleontologists consider Archaeopteryx a transitional form between reptile and bird? Because Archaeopteryx has teeth (which birds living today do not have), and it has claws on its wings, as shown on the illustration in the figure. No adult bird living today has claws on its wings. Some young birds (like the juvenile touraco or the juvenile hoatzin) have claws on their wings when they are young, but they lose them by the time they are adults. Some adult birds, like the ostrich, have structures on their wings that a few texts call “claws,” but they are better called “spurs,” because they do not have the actual structure of claws.

Because of these minor differences between Archaeopteryx and birds living today, macroevolutionists want to believe it is a transitional form between bird and reptile. After all, most (but not all) reptiles have teeth, and most (but not all) reptiles have front and back claws. Thus, the teeth in Archaeopteryx are supposed to represent reptilian teeth that had not quite “evolved away,” and the claws on its wings are supposed to represent front reptilian claws that had not quite blended in to the wing.

There are at least two problems with this interpretation. First, it assumes that birds living today are the only representations of proper birds. This is a rather myopic view of the natural world. We have many fossils that tell us a lot about the kinds of creatures that lived on this earth but are not living now. Are we to ignore them? If we do not ignore these creatures, we find that there were other birds that had teeth. In fact, there is a whole subclass devoted to such extinct birds, subclass Odontornithes (oh' don tor' nih theez). As a result, it is not clear that the teeth on Archaeopteryx are all that special.

The second problem with this interpretation is that it puts a lot of emphasis on rather minor structures in the animal. Based on its feathers, bone structure, lung structure, etc., Archaeopteryx seems to be a true bird. These are the main features we look at to determine whether or not something is a bird. To concentrate on two minor features, one of which exists in extinct birds, seems to be ignoring the vast majority of the data. Those who want to believe that Archaeopteryx is a transitional form will counter that we only see these structures in extinct birds, and therefore it is reasonable to assume that they were a part of the evolutionary process. However, species go extinct rather regularly, as demonstrated by the fossil record itself. The fact that all of the birds with these characteristics are now extinct is not surprising, since extinction is a major part of the fossil record.

Archaeopteryx at least illustrates how difficult it is for macroevolutionists to come up with transitional forms in the fossil record. If Archaeopteryx is a transitional form, it is a very late one. It must have been one of the very last creatures on the hypothetical macroevolutionary line between reptile and bird. Of all the transitional forms necessary to turn a reptile into a bird, it seems odd that the only one that has been found is so incredibly birdlike. Why isn't there a transitional form that is not so ambiguous?

As we said before, there are a few fossils like Archaeopteryx that macroevolutionists can present as transitional forms. The problem is, like Archaeopteryx, these supposed transitional forms are incredibly similar to one of the two types of creatures they are supposed to be linking. It seems much safer to conclude that these are just specialized versions of the creatures they are similar to, as opposed to transitional forms between two different kinds of creatures.