Archaeopteryx
Born again as Archaeopteryx, you would be neither quite a dinosaur nor quite a modern bird: raven-sized, with feathered wings, teeth in your jaws, claws on your fingers and a long bony tail.
An archipelago in Jurassic Bavaria
About 150 million years ago, southern Germany was a scatter of low islands in a warm, shallow sea. The climate was dry and seasonal, and vegetation on the islands was mostly low scrub. Between reefs lay stagnant lagoons; animals that fell or washed into them were buried in fine lime mud and preserved in extraordinary detail – the Solnhofen limestone. You share the islands with Compsognathus, lizards, insects and pterosaurs.
Could you fly?
You are roughly 50 centimetres long, including the tail, and weigh perhaps 0.5–1 kilogram. Your wing feathers are asymmetrical, like those of flying birds today, and your brain had regions associated with flight. Most researchers think you were capable of at least short bursts of powered flight, perhaps closer to a pheasant than a swallow. How well you flew, and how you took off, is still debated.
A study of pigment structures in the first isolated feather suggested it was dark, possibly black – though that analysis too has been argued over. Your feet show you could perch and walk on the ground, and you likely ate insects, small lizards and other small animals. Growth studies suggest you matured more slowly than modern birds, taking a couple of years to reach adult size.
Perfect timing
The first feather was described in 1861, two years after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and the first skeleton was bought by what is now the Natural History Museum in London the next year. A creature halfway between reptile and bird became evidence for evolution. Around a dozen skeletons are now known. Older bird-like feathered dinosaurs have since been found in China, but Archaeopteryx remains the best-known early bird.
