Liaoningornis

The best-known of the claims regarding intermediate forms in the context of reptile-bird evolution is the fossil known as Archaeopteryx. However, it is now known that Archaeopteryx is not an intermediate form at all, but that it was a flying bird, not much different from birds alive today. (SeeArchæopteryx)

Archaeopteryx, which has been proposed as "the forerunner of modern birds," lived approximately 150 million years ago. However, the discovery in China in November 1996 of a fossil known as Liaoningornis demolished evolutionists' claims concerning Archaeopteryx.

This bird, Liaoningornis, is around 130 million years old, possessed a breastbone to which the flight muscles are attached-a structure also found in present-day birds. The only difference is that it had teeth in its beak. This showed that, in contrast to evolutionist claims, that toothed birds did not have a primitive structure.20Indeed, in a text published in Discover magazine, Alan Feduccia says that this fossil invalidates the claim that the origin of birds can be found in dinosaurs.21

20. "Old Bird," Discover, March 21, 1997.
21. Ibid.