Descriptions of feathered dinosaurs continue to wing their way into scientific literature. While most researchers see each new example as another link in a Darwinian story of reptiles somehow evolving into birds, others fit these fossils into more classical categories. Two new discoveries give owners of these opposing views new opportunities to peck at each other’s ideas of bird beginnings.

Discovering fossil spiders has become fairly common.¹ Each time they have been 100% spiders, not vague evolutionary ancestors with partial or transitional features.²
 

The last time I checked, sharks didn’t swim on land. Most shark species inhabit saltwater oceans. Maybe tyrannosaurs swam some, but they didn’t dwell in oceans. Yet somehow sharks and tyrannosaurs died and were buried together. This curious combination calls for a big rethink on an issue that a new study just made bigger.

Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. and Timothy L. Clarey, Ph.D.