"Early reptiles and the amniotic egg: One of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous period (360 - 268 million years ago) was the amniotic egg, which allowed early reptiles to move away from waterside habitats and colonise dry regions. The amniotic egg allowed the ancestors of birds, mammals, and reptiles to reproduce on land by preventing the embryo inside from drying out, so eggs could be laid away from the water."
(Source)
And, in spite that after 150 million years animals had moved on land, Archeopteryx was still returning to the water. His ancestors never really "left" the water.
Birds love fish.
(Source)
As a Transitional Form Archaeopteryx Won't Fly
icr org/article/321/ Institute for Creation Research by D Gish
"...Recent fossil discoveries and recent research on Archaeopteryx argue strongly against the suggestion that it is transitional between reptiles and birds..."
There's more than one thing being argued... and confused.
#1) argues that dinosaurs which were contemporaries with birds and dinosaurs which evolved AFTER birds already existed...were the dinosaurian 'ancestors' of the birds (which is madness). And when they are shown a fossil which is clearly transitional between bird and archosaur, or dinosaur and archosaur -- they outright REJECT the transitional fossil. These people seek "bird like dinosaurs" and "bird like dinosaurs" -- and make the mistake of attempting to lump them all together as "dinosaur" which is entirely wrong.
#2) argues that birds evolved independently (separate from dinosaurs) though undoubtedly sharing common ancestry, and descending from "reptilian" archosaurs -- but the word "reptile"... really doesn't necessarily mean cold-blooded "reptiles".
"...The term “reptile” is, in fact, a misnomer. It is the habit of scientists to group all life-forms in terms of their evolutionary lineage – or if you like, their family tree."
(Source)
How many dino-bird hypothesizers, like creationist, assume "reptiles" all necessarily mean "cold-blooded reptile" in the modern taxonomic sense.
It is expected... predicted, that Archosaur descendents should branch into crocodilians and birds and dinosaurs (including some groups that went extinct), and that many of the earliest should naturally, have blended traits -- the farther you go back in the fossil history, the less defined the fossils should be -- bird-like dinosaurs and dinosaur-like birds... crocodilian-like dinosaurs and dinosaurian-like crocodiles, in other words:
Transitional from bird to Archosaur.
Transitional from dinosaur to Archosaur.
But all the fanatics care to find these days are "dinosaur to bird" (in other words, transitional between contemporary species) instead of transitional to more primitive forms. Transitional fossils are being discovered, but so far all that appears to have been discovered, to the discredit of both dino-bird crowd and creationists --- the fossils which appear to be dinosaur-like birds, or bird-like dinosaurs -- ARE TRANSITIONAL between bird and archosaur or dinosaur-to-archosaur...
but dino-bird hypothesizers don't want to accept the transitional fossils.
That's ironic, isn't it?
Darwinian theory predicts there should be "dinosaur-like crocodiles" and "crocodile-like dinosaurs"... and we should EXPECT to find some species that seemingly blur lines between CONTEMPORARY BIRDS/DINOSAURS which coexisted during the same time frame... but by no means did the bird evolve from creatures that lived 100 Million years, AFTER them...
... hold that thought...
Yes... there were.
"....along with the small bird-/dinosaur-like crocodile-ancestors and similar forms, three other lines, all of which, although soon becoming extinct themselves curiously presaged later..."
"...At a very early stage, these basal crown group archosaurs split into two major evolutionary lineages, the crurotarsian line, which includes crocodiles and a number of other groups, and the ornithodiran line, which includes the ancestors of dinosaurs, birds, and pterosaurs.)
The forms that evolved from early Crurotarsian ancestors included the phytosaurs, large semi-aquatic crocodile-like phytosaurs; the terrestrial carnivorous prestosuchids; the armoured herbivorous aetosaurs; the ctenosauriscids, strange sail-backed forms; and other little known types. This pseudosuchian or crocodile-related line constituted the dominant branch of thecodontian archosaurs. Among their members they included, along with the small bird-/dinosaur-like crocodile-ancestors and similar forms, three other lines, all of which, although soon becoming extinct themselves curiously presaged later evolutionary lines.)"
By the late Triassic then, the thecodontian archosaurs had reached their maximum diversity.
They included both large and small dinosaur-like bipeds (long tailed animals that ran on their hind legs), armored aetosaur herbivores, several lines of large terrestrial carnivores, the large predatory ornithosuchids, capable of running on either their hind legs or on all fours, and crocodile-like semi-aquatic predators (phytosaurs and proterochampsids), and active little four-legged runners (the Sphenosuchia, variously considered to be crocodiles and thecodonts). The ornithodire line meanwhile had already produced the first dinosaurs and pterosaurs, but these early ornithodires, although common, for the most part remained in the shadow of the large archosaurs.)"
(Source)
More of the ridiculously unnatural "red" color which does not exist on large predators... yet, based on the reconstruction attempt -- is it crocodile, bird, or dinosaur?
New Dinosaur, Crocodile Cousin Found in Brazil
(Source)
The dino-bird crowd have to have a 1) Bird or 2) Dinosaur or, 3) Crocodile... "ARCHOSAUR TRANSITIONAL FOSSILS" ARE NOT ALLOWED!!! No room for convergent evolution, either.
No room for Darwinian Evolution and transitional fossils.
If it is a bird with dinosaur-like features, then, according to the dino-bird crowd, its a "full-blooded dinosaur" and evolved necessarily, "from dinosaurs". This is mode of reasoning is not based on Darwinian evolution and as bad, worse, as creationism.
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