Via LATimes from Yahoo ESCONI Group:
... scientists say they found an even older feathered dinosaur – one that reestablishes Archaeopteryx as part of the bird lineage even as it may simultaneously dethrone Archaeopteryx as the earliest known "bird." The study, published online in the journal Nature, provides a key link in the evolutionary chain of events that led from dinosaurs to birds."It pushes [back] the origins of birds — or origin of animals that are very closely related to the bird," said Luis Chiappe, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles who was not involved in the paper. "And that’s quite exciting."
