Taking Wing : Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight

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Summary: The first bird, or a feathered reptile?
Review: Archaeopteryx has aroused the interest of specialists and the general public alike since its first fossils were discovered in the 1860s, only a short time after The Origin of Species was published, when the excitement raised by Darwin's famous book had by no means died down. Darwin himself had explained that so extremely few individuals become fossils that we cannot expect to find fossils to answer every question about evolution that we might want to ask -- in short, that fossilized links cannot be found to document every postulated transition between one species and another. Nonetheless, there was great interest in the search for "missing links", for example between modern birds and their ancestors. Archaeopteryx seemed at once to supply this link: it had feathers, like a modern bird, and unlike any other modern creature; but it also had teeth, like a dinosaur, but unlike any modern bird.

As Pat Shipman describes in her book, Archaeopteryx appears to answer some questions about the origin of birds, but it also raises and only partially answers numerous other questions. Were the dinosaurs thermoregulators (warm-blooded in everyday terminology), like birds and mammals, or cold-blooded, like reptiles? Could archaeopteryx fly? What function did its feathers fulfil, if not for flying? Archaeopteryx had more than just feathers: its feathers resembled those of flying birds, not those of flightless birds like ostriches, which have lost the capacity to link together to form a coherent surface. If it was cold-blooded, could it have generated enough power to fly significant distances? To put this into perspective, the differences in food requirements between warm- and cold-blooded animals are huge: a 9 ounce (255 gram) mammal or bird needs to eat about 17 times as much food as a lizard of the same size, all of the extra food being necessary to meet the requirements of temperature regulation. Although the argument is not yet over, the conclusion appears to be that Archaeopteryx probably needed to be warm-blooded, and the dinosaurs were probably warm-blooded as well.

The Archaeopteryx fossils attracted accusations of forgery soon after they were first discovered, as they seemed some observers to be too good to be true. These accusations acquired renewed credibility in the 1980s when a group led by the cosmologist Fred Hoyle -- notorious among evolutionists for his attacks on Darwinism -- announced that the feather impressions were faked and that they had found traces of an artificial material "like chewing gum". This was an important accusation, because much of the importance of the fossils lay in the implication that the feathers belonged to the same individual as the rest of the remains. As the book explains, these accusations were taken quite seriously -- after all "lack of expertise does not necessarily disqualify anyone from making acute observations", and a careful outsider may notice important points that have been missed by all the experts -- but were not difficult to refute. Ludicrously, Hoyle and his colleagues apparently carried out their tests without having realized that it is routine practice in museums where fossils are kept to treat them with preservatives to protect them from decay.

As an anthropologist Pat Shipman has a professional interest in fossils, albeit not specifically fossilized birds, and she includes a great deal of technical detail in her book. As a result its conclusions are thoroughly documented, but at the same time the technical discussions occasionally lead to rather heavy going for the non-specialist reader.

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Summary: Excellent study on bird's flight
Review: high quality of work done by Shipman as seen so many in other comments & I also totally agree with it. The only shame is that she holds her interpretation on the theories "ground up" or "tree down". The right answer which could convince both sides, so far, can't be expected. Even so, I wish she had expressed her own opinion inspired through her labourious studies. The component & development of the text is simply excellent. That's why I feel something missed.

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Summary: Getting to grips with the bird origins debate
Review: Regrettably, the debate around the origin of birds has now polarised to a point that reasonable discussion is often difficult. The fact that Pat Shipman is able to present a clear and unbiased account of the discussions and personae is the strongest point of this book. Archaeopteryx lithographica is taken as a guide for a survey of current (well, 1998) thought about the origin of birds and the origin of bird flight. The fact that she doesn't really choose sides does not hinder her to conclude that those in favour of the 'ground-up' and dinosaurian origin of birds now have the upper hand - but then, any other conclusion would have been a distortion of fact. However, the arguments of the 'other side' are also presented, leaving the conclusion to the reader. A vert worthwile effort about a really important modern scientific debate.

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Summary: Ancient flight plan
Review: TAKING WING is the story of Archaeopteryx and therefore it's about the origins of birds and the evolution of flight. Beginning with a history of the 8 fossil remains (7 skeletons and 1 feather) we read about the dozens of people from the myriad sciences (paleontology, biology, ornithology, aeronautics and engineering) that have puzzled over the significance of Archaeopteryx lithographica (Ancient wing from the printing stone). Even the name seems a puzzle until you realize it's named for the smooth limestone slabs that were used in printing. The quarries where most of the fossils were found are in Germany.

One of the persons mentioned in the book is John Ostrom, who Ms Shipman gives full credit for reviving the dinosaur to bird hypothesis for the evolution of aves (birds). Arguments over the origins of birds are legion, and with good reason says Ms Shipman. The morphology of Archaeopteryx "is genuinely ambiguous." Just where do birds belong in the taxonomy of life? Ms Shipman talks about the morphology of hands and wings and provides an interesting synopsis of two different ways of interpreting evolutionary anatomy - homology and analogy. Very briefly, homology looks for evolutionary modifications of some common structure wheras analogy sees similarities based on function, not on common descent.

The two, big, bird questions are:

(1) Did birds descend from dinosaurs or from some older common reptilian ancestor of both dinosaurs and birds?

(2) How did birds learn to fly. "Down from the trees," parachuting, then gliding, then powered flight or "up from the ground," running, then hopping, then flapping to get airborne?

Ms Shipman, after offering a balanced and detailed analysis of the subject, has her own opinion. She states that predatory dinosaurs known as theropods are "the most probable ancestors of birds." On the question of flying she says, "I am now convinced that Archaeopteryx was such a large-winged creature that it could take off from the ground, with either a reptilian or an avian physiology."

I'm just as impressed with Archaeopteryx as I am with the vast amounts of scientific research trying to explain its origins. For a little creature no bigger than a crow, that lived 150 million years ago, this book is a rather impressive tribute.

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Summary: out-of-print?
Review: The other reviews accurately describe the contents of this book. What I want to emphasize is Shipman's writing. This is probably the best written science book I have ever read. The author breaks down the book into smaller stories, such as the discovery of the fossils themselves, the structure of the skeletal joints of dinosaurs and modern birds, and the evolution and aerodynamics of feathers to name a few. Also recounted are the some of the more interesting human characters interpreting the fossil record of these little birds for the past 150 years. All of this is told in a lively, informal fashion. Yet Shipman does not shy away from some of the more technical details, and that is part of the joy of this book. Instead, she takes us by the hand and leads us through the details, never trying to oversimplify things, but never boring us, either. It reads like a novel.

My only complaint is that the illustrations, in the paperback edition I read, are reduced to such a tiny size that they are often very hard or impossible to read. This is a shame, because the illustrations are really necessary to understand some of the concepts presented here. But don't let that stop you--get a magnifying glass and let your mind soar back tens of thousands of millenia to the time when little Archaeopteryx lived and died.

This is a great book.

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Summary: out-of-print?
Review: This beautifully written and engaging book is still available in hardback at a surprisingly low price from Daedalus.com (at least when I last checked August 1, 2002).

Highly recommended for both its written style and content.

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Summary: Details but a lack of structure
Review: This book is rich in detail and a great study of the tactics taken by paleontolgists in proposing theories and testing those proposals by working with fossils and similar living creatures that may cast light on the theory. But inevitably, it seems, for every proposal and positive test result someone else will come up with another test for the same proposal and the results will be negative. In the end there are so many questions without firm answers that it becomes hard to know which, if any, or which combinations of these questions, would resolve the matter. It seems that Archaeopteryx had feathers (although there is discussion of those who thought the feather impressions were forgeries). It seems that it was a dinosaur (not a bird). But was it 'proaves' the precursor bird? Apparently the fossil record of primitive birds is too poor for us to know - I would have liked more details about these early fossil birds. Was Archaeopteryx warm blooded? Were any dinosaurs? Could Archaeopteryx fly or were the feathers merely for heat insulation? For me I would have liked more on 'pro-feather' - the precursor to feathers. At the very end of the book we learn of a find in 1996 in China of a dinosaur that did not have wings but appears to have feathers on its back and sides. Other flying creatures are discussed - pterosaurs, insects, bats (surprisingly from the fossil record quite recently evolved) and gliding mammals such a sugar gliders. There is also some aerodynamics in this book as researchers try to determine if Archaeopteryx could fly. The result of their aerodynamic studies? As always - uncertainty!

I am reviewing a paperback copy of this book published by Wiedenfeld and Nicolson. It's a handsome book but I cannot understand what possessed the publishers to put a pterosaur fossil on the front cover rather than Archaeopteryx. To be fair, they do point this out on the back cover which is how I finalised realised this - but who pays much attention to back cover blurbs?

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Summary: Detailed but inconclusive
Review: This is a rapidly evolving subject and things have moved on since the book was written.

The author has researched very intensively and the book is heavy on facts, arguments and counter arguments. There is however, little to take home with you.

I've read extreme versions of the tale including the work by Danish ornithologist Heilmann (birds are proto dinosaurs) and accounts by Robert Bakker (birds are derived dinosaurs). I tend to prefer the dinosaurs are birds argument which is gaining more momentum with every new fossil unearthed, but this book tries hard to be impartial and creates too much doubt. The author does not say what she thinks and why which would have been useful.

It is balanced and a good addition summarising our knowledge but there are probably far better works now available.

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Summary: Taking Wing Soars
Review: This is a splendid book. Shipman has a clear, entertaining writing style but does not sacrifice detail to "dumb things down" for the reader. The book covers not only Archaeopteryx but flight in general, looking at the development of flight in organisms ranging from bats and pterodactyls to the Wright Brothers. She does not avoid controversial topics such as the accusation that the best-known Archaeopteryx fossil is a forgery; instead she explains in detail how we know this is not the case. I would recommend Shipman's book not only to paleontology fans but to anyone interested in flight or modern birds.