Labels:text | screenshot | font | number OCR: English anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) and U.S. dinosaur expert Edward Drinker Cope (1840-97) realized that Compsognathus was a tiny dinosaur related to the huge monsters currently being unearthed in the United States and England. IMPORTANT IMPLICATIONS By coincidence, another fossil find further increased the importance of Compsognathus. In the same year that the delicate dinosaur was named, a very detailed fossil of Archaeopteryx was also found at the Solnhofen quarry in Bavaria, Germany. The reptilian features of Archaeopteryx soon drew attention to the birdlike features of Compsognathus. Both Cope and Huxley were quick to see the implications for dinosaur posture and anatomy. A closer link between dinosaurs and birds, as opposed to between dinosaurs and mammals, fitted in with the fossil finds of Hadrosaurus and Laclaps in the United States. These American finds showed a lighter build, greater agility, and a more two-legged stance than the huge, lumbering dinosaurs envisioned by Richard Owen (1804-92), the British fossil expert who invented the term "dinosaur." BRIDGING THE GAP In 1868, Huxley wrote an article discussing the birdlike skeleton and probable upright posture of the tiny Compsognathus dinosaur, and in the United States, Marsh hailed Archacopteryx as the fossil find that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds. Scientists today continue to discuss the similarities between the skeletons of Compsognathus and Archaeopteryx and the possible descent of birds from dinosaurs, or their possible joint descent from a common ancestor.
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