THE LIFE STYLE OF ARCHAEOPTERYX (AVES)
Abstract
The lack of modern flight adaptations and flight maneuverability makes both ground-up take off and arboreal foraging of Archaeopteryx extremely improbable (even if trees were present in a part of its habitat). A combination of heights-down take-off and ground foraging necessitated a swift terrestrial escape to a launching site and probably climbing elevated objects. Archaeopteryx does not show any distinctive cursorial specialization and the leg intramembral ratios suggest a slow-pace to multimode (i.e., using various gaits) forager, similar in behavior to today's tinamous and most galliforms. Archaeopteryx was an escape runner, not a cursorial predator. The limbs of Archaeopteryx and (non-avian) theropods reveal substantial functional differences, which make their similarities even more likely to be synapomorphic.
KEY WORDS. Archaeopteryx. Birds. Paleobiological reconstruction. Flight. Locomotion. Foraging. Jurassic.
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