Paleornithology
scientific study of bird evolution and fossil birds
Paleornithology, also known as avian paleontology, is the scientific study of bird evolution and fossil birds. It is a hybrid of ornithology and paleontology. Paleornithology began with the discovery of Archaeopteryx. The reptilian relationship of birds and their ancestors, the theropod dinosaurs, are important aspects of paleornithological research. Other areas of interest to paleornithologists are the early sea-birds Ichthyornis, Hesperornis, and others. Notable paleornithologists are Storrs L. Olson, Alexander Wetmore, Alan Feduccia, Cécile Mourer-Chauviré, Philip Ashmole, Pierce Brodkorb, Trevor H. Worthy, Zhou Zhonghe, Yevgeny Kurochkin, Bradley C. Livezey, Gareth J. Dyke, Luis M. Chiappe, Gerald Mayr and David Steadman.
References
Mayr, Gerald (2007). "The renaissance of avian paleontology and its bearing on the higher-level phylogeny of birds". Journal of Ornithology. 148: 455–458.
“Paleornithology” enters the record as scientific study of bird evolution and fossil birds. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Paleornithology, scientific and study can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Paleornithology” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Paleornithology, scientific and study provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q455928. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paleornithology” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.