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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Archaeopteryx - all there is to know., January 12, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Taking Wing : Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight (Hardcover)
There are seven specimens of Archaeopteryx; and a feather. And from what seems not very much a great deal of academic effort is attempting to discover the origins of bird flight. In jaundiced moments one speculates that when another specimen is found another university will be founded to study it. And a second one to refute the findings of the first. There are certainly enough academic disciplines involved to start a couple of faculties - geology, palaeontology, biology, anatomy, physiology, ecology, aerodynamic engineering, ornithology - the variety of skills focused on these seven specimens is never ending. Archaeopteryx probably weighed about 250 grams and had a wing span of 58 cm. To take off it needed to generate more than 9.8 newtons per kilogram of its body weight to overcome the force of gravity. We may have the feathers of Archaeopteryx but we do not have a reliable measurement of its musculature, - their size, strength or efficiency. This of course can, and does, lead to hugely involved disputes as to whether the beast could take off, if it took off from the ground, or from a tree it had climbed up, did it fly or did it glide or were its feathers there just to keep it warm. But before we get to what Archaeopteryx was for we have to go through much fascinating detail of how the fossils were found; detailed anatomy of wings and of wing flapping; discussion of X-rays taken of birds as they fly; which reptiles were the birds ancestor (and was that the same ancestor as that of Archaeopteryx); discussion of homologous and analogous parts in the wrist of Deinonychus and Archaeopteryx; which of the original five fingers are retained in Archaeopteryx's three digits, the significance of a reversed hallux, especially in relation to tree climbing and perching; the evolution and function of feathers; the development of "wings" for temperature regulation and/or flight; comparisons between bats, pterosaurs and birds and their relationship to Archaeopteryx; and many other topics which impinge on the study of these fabulous fossils. As you can see from my list of the subjects discussed - which is by no means complete - anyone who understands all there is to know about Archaeopteryx can claim to know a good fraction of human knowledge. The author makes a good stab at making the varied strands of expertise digestible to the intelligent layman, and in the main succeeds very well. Having read the book I now know a great deal more than I did before, and have a better understanding of the areas of controversy. In the end one will never know unequivocally whether Archaeopteryx could take off from the ground and fly in and out of the bushes, flapping its wings as it chased butterflies and dragonflies, but I hope it did. And if another specimen is found I would love to have a good long look at it.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Triumph of Science Writing, August 3, 2001
This review is from: Taking Wing : Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight (Hardcover)
The other reviews accurately describe the contents of this book. What I want to emphasize is Shipman's writing. This is probably the best written science book I have ever read. The author breaks down the book into smaller stories, such as the discovery of the fossils themselves, the structure of the skeletal joints of dinosaurs and modern birds, and the evolution and aerodynamics of feathers to name a few. Also recounted are the some of the more interesting human characters interpreting the fossil record of these little birds for the past 150 years. All of this is told in a lively, informal fashion. Yet Shipman does not shy away from some of the more technical details, and that is part of the joy of this book. Instead, she takes us by the hand and leads us through the details, never trying to oversimplify things, but never boring us, either. It reads like a novel. My only complaint is that the illustrations, in the paperback edition I read, are reduced to such a tiny size that they are often very hard or impossible to read. This is a shame, because the illustrations are really necessary to understand some of the concepts presented here. But don't let that stop you--get a magnifying glass and let your mind soar back tens of thousands of millenia to the time when little Archaeopteryx lived and died. This is a great book.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ancient flight plan, May 9, 2001
TAKING WING is the story of Archaeopteryx and therefore it's about the origins of birds and the evolution of flight. Beginning with a history of the 8 fossil remains (7 skeletons and 1 feather) we read about the dozens of people from the myriad sciences (paleontology, biology, ornithology, aeronautics and engineering) that have puzzled over the significance of Archaeopteryx lithographica (Ancient wing from the printing stone). Even the name seems a puzzle until you realize it's named for the smooth limestone slabs that were used in printing. The quarries where most of the fossils were found are in Germany. One of the persons mentioned in the book is John Ostrom, who Ms Shipman gives full credit for reviving the dinosaur to bird hypothesis for the evolution of aves (birds). Arguments over the origins of birds are legion, and with good reason says Ms Shipman. The morphology of Archaeopteryx "is genuinely ambiguous." Just where do birds belong in the taxonomy of life? Ms Shipman talks about the morphology of hands and wings and provides an interesting synopsis of two different ways of interpreting evolutionary anatomy - homology and analogy. Very briefly, homology looks for evolutionary modifications of some common structure wheras analogy sees similarities based on function, not on common descent. The two, big, bird questions are: (1) Did birds descend from dinosaurs or from some older common reptilian ancestor of both dinosaurs and birds? (2) How did birds learn to fly. "Down from the trees," parachuting, then gliding, then powered flight or "up from the ground," running, then hopping, then flapping to get airborne? Ms Shipman, after offering a balanced and detailed analysis of the subject, has her own opinion. She states that predatory dinosaurs known as theropods are "the most probable ancestors of birds." On the question of flying she says, "I am now convinced that Archaeopteryx was such a large-winged creature that it could take off from the ground, with either a reptilian or an avian physiology." I'm just as impressed with Archaeopteryx as I am with the vast amounts of scientific research trying to explain its origins. For a little creature no bigger than a crow, that lived 150 million years ago, this book is a rather impressive tribute.
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