自从1862年,在德国巴伐尼亚省,距今约一亿五千万年的侏罗纪晚期石灰岩中,发现了始祖鸟的化石之后,古生物学家就根据它的突出特点,推断始祖鸟是爬行类到鸟类的中间过渡类型动物,并为生物进化论提供了很有力的证据。因此,一百多年来,始祖鸟一直被确定为鸟类的祖先。 Paleontologists, on the basis of its salient features, have found that Archeopteryx is a reptile since 1862, when fossils of Archeopteryx were found in Jurassic late limestone about 150 million years ago in the province of Bavaria, Germany An intermediate-transitional type of animal to bird, and provides strong evidence for the theory of biological evolution. Therefore, for more than a century, Archeopteryx has been identified as the ancestor of birds.