archaeopteryx
pronunciation
How to pronounce archaeopteryx in British English:
UK [ˌɑ:kiˈɒpterɪks]
How to pronounce archaeopteryx in American English:
US [ˌɑrkiˈɑpterɪks]
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- Noun:
- extinct primitive toothed bird of the Jurassic period having a long feathered tail and hollow bones; usually considered the most primitive of all birds
Word Origin
- archaeopteryx (n.)
- oldest known fossil bird, 1859, Modern Latin, from archaeo- "ancient, primitive" + Greek pteryx "wing" (see pterodactyl).
Example
- 1. It 's a ...... a study is challenging thoughts about the " early bird " archaeopteryx .
- 2. The findings , one researcher said , showed that " the transition to physiological and metabolic birds happened well after archaeopteryx . "
- 3. The famous archaeopteryx the first specimen of which resides in the natural history museum in london for example , is one such transitional fossil between the reptiles and birds .
- 4. In the world of palaeontology we uncovered a set of enormous eyes that roamed the oceans , found lucy the hominid was not a swinger and that archaeopteryx is once again top of the evolutionary bird tree .
- 5. For years , skeptics had raised the so-called temporal paradox : there were no feathered dinosaurs older than archaeopteryx , so birds could not have arisen from dinosaurs .