Transitional fossil: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:23, 9 December 2021

Revision as of 02:11, 10 January 2022

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[[File:Archæopteryx, fig 1, Nordisk familjebok.png|thumb|upright|A historic 1904 reconstruction of ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archæopteryx]]'']]

[[File:Rhynia reconstruction.svg|thumb|upright|Reconstruction of ''[[Rhynia]]'']]

The idea that animal and plant species were not constant, but changed over time, was suggested as far back as the 18th century.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Archibald |first1=J. David |date=August 2009 |title=Edward Hitchcock's Pre-Darwinian (1840) 'Tree of Life' |url=http://www.bio.sdsu.edu/faculty/archibald.html/Archibald09JHB42p561.pdf |journal=[[Journal of the History of Biology]] |volume=42 |issue=3 |pages=561–592 |doi=10.1007/s10739-008-9163-y |issn=0022-5010 |pmid=20027787 |citeseerx=10.1.1.688.7842 |s2cid=16634677 }}</ref> Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species'', published in 1859, gave it a firm scientific basis. A weakness of Darwin's work, however, was the lack of palaeontological evidence, as pointed out by Darwin himself. While it is easy to imagine [[natural selection]] producing the variation seen within [[genus|genera]] and families, the transmutation between the higher categories was harder to imagine. The dramatic find of the [[Archaeopteryx#History of discovery|London specimen]] of ''[[Archaeopteryx]]'' in 1861, only two years after the publication of Darwin's work, offered for the first time a link between the [[class (biology)|class]] of the highly derived birds, and that of the more primitivebasal [[reptile]]s.{{sfn|Darwin|1859|loc=[http://www.readprint.com/chapter-2217/Charles-Darwin Chapter 10]}} In a letter to Darwin, the palaeontologist [[Hugh Falconer]] wrote:

<blockquote>Had the Solnhofen quarries been commissioned—by august command—to turn out a strange being à la Darwin—it could not have executed the behest more handsomely—than in the ''Archaeopteryx''.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Williams |first=David B. |date=September 2011 |title=Benchmarks: September 30, 1861: Archaeopteryx is discovered and described |url=http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/benchmarks-september-30-1861-archaeopteryx-discovered-and-described |journal=EARTH |issn=1943-345X |access-date=2012-02-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120507072544/http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/benchmarks-september-30-1861-archaeopteryx-discovered-and-described |archive-date=7 May 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref></blockquote>