How Archaeopteryx Clawed Its Way into Being an Evolutionary Icon

We also demonstrated that specific traits that Archae exhibited (such as its flat sternum) are actually not that uniquely reptilian whatsoever, as there is a living bird today called a hoatzin that exhibits flight and mobility characteristics identical to how Archaeopteryx has been described (a clumsy flyer), because of the same general physical characteristic—a non-keeled sternum.

So it is illegitimate for evolutionists to declare Archaeopteryx was uniquely “reptilian” based on that characteristic.

Wing Claws?

Of course, such arguments often cause evolutionists to bring out their evidential big guns, pointing to Archaeopteryx’s wing claws as proof of its reptile heritage and often depict Archae in a more dinosaur-like pose than a birdlike one these days, emphasizing it as having been more dinosaur-like than birdlike.

However, fossil anatomy obviously isn’t an exact science, and skeletons of Archaeopteryx and many other extinct animals can and have been depicted in a variety of ways depending on the presuppositions of their creators.

And once again, despite being claimed as a specifically reptilian trait, several modern-day birds also have claws on their wings, so that feature isn’t unique among lizard-like creatures either.

However, evolutionary articles describing the various types of birds that have them often declare that they are vestigial leftovers from their dinosaur heritage, but that is simply a story imposed on the facts.

It’s just assuming evolution happened and that dinosaurs (some of which had claws) evolved into birds, and then saying if birds have claws, that’s evidence that evolution has happened. It’s the logical fallacy called begging the question and is simply an example of circular reasoning.

The fact is, even though wing claws on birds are referred to as vestigial, birds have been observed using them for very practical reasons, especially when they are chicks and haven’t gained their flight capability yet.

Grasping at Claws

One of these birds is the common moorhen. Here are quotes from two different publications (both in support of the story of evolution, by the way) describing how they use their claws.

You may test this whenever you have the good fortune to capture a young water-hen. Place him outside the nest, and especially if it happens to be a little raised, you will see him make his way back, using feet, wing-claws, and beak.1

Moorhen chicks retain a finger or two (the light yellowish structures) and they can use the claws on these digits to climb their way out of trouble. In a pinch, they can even grab on to mom or dad and be flown to safety!2

Now, there are several other birds, including certain vultures, harriers, Ralluses, and owls have been reported3 as having multiple wing claws as well, some of which have only been observed on juveniles and others having them on both young and adult specimens.

But once again, likely the most interesting of those birds that have multiple claws today is the South American hoatzin, and this is where our analysis of Archaeopteryx’s supposed unique status begins to get even more interesting.

You see, young hoatzins utilize their claws quite frequently as juveniles. The claws allow them to climb back up to their nest after diving into the water when threatened by predators. Their nests typically overhang water for this purpose.

Watching a video4 of them climbing a 45-degree incline (which is publicly available on The Scientist YouTube channel) is quite astonishing, and you can see how their wing claws could be vital to their survival at this preflight stage of development.

Indeed, the well-known ornithologist and evolution-believing comparative anatomist W. P. Pycraft described why these claws are important in young hoatzin in his book Birds in Flight.

So long as these youngsters can only scramble about they are in constant jeopardy. A wing-surface at least big enough to break the force of a fall is an urgent necessity. And so the growth of the quill-feathers is, so to speak, pushed forward with all possible speed.

But if all the feathers grew at the same rate, there would speedily come a time when the outermost feathers would make the claw at the end of the finger useless, while the wing-surface, as a whole, would be insufficient. To obviate this difficulty, the development of the outermost feathers is held in abeyance till the inner feathers of the hand, and the outermost of the forearm, have grown big enough to suffice to break the force of the fall.

As soon as this stage is arrived at, the outermost quills, whose growth has been held in abeyance, rapidly develop; the finger decreases in length, and its claw disappears, while that of the thumb soon follows suit. And thus it comes about that the hand, in the nestling, is relatively much longer than in the adult.5

Of course, what Pycraft described is an example of brilliant design, not evidence for the story of evolution. The juveniles need claws on their wings while their feathers are growing, but all the feathers couldn’t grow at the same time because that would cover up the claws before they could fly, leaving them helpless for some time.

So the growth of the different feathers is perfectly timed to maximize the bird’s safety through the transition from flightless, climbing juvenile to fully flight-capable adult.

Adults or Adolescents?

However, because of his evolutionary presuppositions, Pycraft then surmises the following:

But in its mid-period it may be taken to represent the adult stage of the wing of the ancient Archaeopteryx. This bird could have been but a poor flier, and probably during the time it was moulting its quills it was absolutely flightless, so that it needed a permanent finger-tip, and claw, beyond the margin of its wing-surface.6

Of course, once again, all of that is just evolutionary supposition. And contrary to Pycraft’s musings that having claws would represent “the adult stage of the wing of the ancient Archaeopteryx,” what is very interesting is that the Archaeopteryx fossils that have been found are all young:

[T]he Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx, which, like all known near-complete specimens, is considered as juvenile7

Now, that is extremely significant when you consider it carefully, as this is confirmed by multiple evolutionary studies.

Archaeopteryx specimens are often considered to be juveniles.8

All known Archaeopteryx are young individuals spanning a developmentally very limited range.9

And this is a key piece of evidence that is critical to what I alluded to earlier. Think about it. Archaeopteryx has been touted as unique because of its claws on its wings, and in almost every artist’s rendition or animation I have ever seen, the depiction is always of an adult Archaeopteryx specimen with prominent wing claws, some of them making it seem as dinosaurian as possible.

Just Google Archaeopteryx and then click the Images tab for yourself. Aside from pictures of the actual fossil specimens, you will see what I’m talking about in the various artist renditions shown.

And yet, if the known specimens of Archaeopteryx that have been found are considered to be juvenile, that would mean scientists can’t be sure whether adult Archaeopteryx actually had prominent wing claws, can they?

And yet that’s the way they are depicted and then used to convince people of how unique they were compared to modern birds, and this is promoted despite the fact we have modern birds alive today that have prominent wing claws in their juvenile forms.

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

Also of interest is that “all were found in the Solnhofen Limestone Formation in Bavaria, Germany, starting in 1861.”10

Indeed, a 2009 article pointed out that “in all, 10 Archaeopteryx skeletons have been discovered, all in quarries in Bavaria, south-east Germany, within a radius of about 15 miles.”11

So perhaps what we’ve been finding are simply juveniles of a bird type that may have been somewhat similar to hoatzin that still had their claws and had some feathers but were too young to fly, so they drowned early in Noah’s flood and covered quickly by sediment as the rising floodwaters deprived them of the safety of their nests as the water pounded down. Adults would have died later and were more likely not to have fossilized.

Again, as mentioned earlier, research has shown that other types of birds have been seen having multiple claws, but the expression of them is not always consistent, even within the same bird kind.

A second claw was found on an adult Coragyps, a natal Circus, natal and adult Rallus, and on several natal Otus. It is to be expected that this claw will be found from time to time in adult specimens of other genera.12

Evolutionists often make a big deal out of the fact that Archaeopteryx had three wing claws and no living birds today exhibit more than two. However, one of the most recent specimens of Archaeopteryx found (considered to be the oldest13) only has two claws.

And I suppose one could argue that perhaps both claws may simply have just happened to have fallen off the exact same digit on both wings and not have been fossilized in this particular case, but of course, it could also be this particular Archaeopteryx simply didn’t have three claws.

There are a variety of creatures today that express different numbers of various physical traits such as claws, vertebrae, toes, teeth, etc., that are all the same kind but have built-in genetic variation resulting in different morphological expressions among them.

This means that the expression, or lack thereof, of claws on the wings of birds (whether alive or extinct) could simply be due to the built-in genetic variability within the various birds (and other animal kinds) that God created.

Indeed, even a recent, detailed study on this latest find commented on the variable traits found within the limited number of Archaeopteryx specimens available to study.

Specimens that can be referred to Archaeopteryx show a high amount of variation, both in the morphometrics of the limb bones as well as in the dentition. . . . The significance of this variation is unclear. . . . The possibility that the known specimens represent a “species flock” of Archaeopteryx, possibly due to island speciation after the initial dispersal of the genus into the Solnhofen Archipelago.14

As another article discussing the various Archaeopteryx specimens put it:

Even within that group of nine specimens, no two Archaeopteryx look the same. . . . There is significant variation in the size, shape, spacing and orientation of the teeth, as well as differences in body size between the different specimens. . . . Similarly to today’s Galápagos finches, different populations of Archaeopteryx may have adapted to different insular environments.15

However, aside from the natural, built-in variation in all creatures, there is another factor to consider, and that is some changes could also be due to the accumulation of deleterious mutations inside the genome of creatures over time that suppress their expression.

This leads us to a discussion about some of Archaeopteryx’s traits that evolutionists claim are truly unique with no living counterparts (such as the hoatzin) to compare to.

So, join us in part 3 where we will look into even more specialized features such as teeth and a long tail that evolutionists claim make Archae special enough to still describe it as an icon of evolution.