 Cover illustration of the 1972 Dover reprint edition of The Origin of Birds, based on a painting by Gerhard Heilmann | |
| Author | Gerhard Heilmann |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Ornithology Evolutionary biology Paleontology |
| Genre | science, biology |
| Publisher | England: H. F. & G. Witherby U.S.: D. Appleton & Company |
Publication date | 1926 |
| Publication place | England, United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 209 |
| ISBN | 0-486-22784-7 |
| Followed by | Univers og traditionen (1940)[1] |
The Origin of Birds is an early synopsis of bird evolution written in 1926 by Gerhard Heilmann, a Danish artist and amateur zoologist. The book was born from a series of articles published between 1913 and 1916 in Danish, and although republished as a book it received mainly criticism from established scientists and got little attention within Denmark. The English edition of 1926, however, became highly influential at the time due to the breadth of evidence synthesized as well as the artwork used to support its arguments.[2] It was considered the last word on the subject of bird evolution for several decades after its publication.[3]
Through the course of the research represented in the book, Heilmann considers and eventually rejects the possibility of all living and several extinct groups of reptiles as potential ancestors for modern birds, including crocodilians, pterosaurs and several groups of dinosaurs.[4] Despite his acknowledgment that some of the smaller Jurassic theropods had many similarities to Archaeopteryx and modern birds, he determined that they were unlikely to be direct bird ancestors and that they were instead closely–related offshoots,[5] and concluded that the similarities were a result of convergent evolution rather than direct ancestry.[6] Based essentially on a process of elimination, Heilmann arrives at the conclusion that birds must be descended from thecodonts, a group of archosaurs that lived during the Permian and Triassic periods.[1] Although this conclusion was later shown to be inaccurate, The Origin of Birds was regarded as a masterful piece of scholarship at the time and set the international agenda for research in bird evolution for nearly half a century, and much of its research remains of interest.[5]
- ^ a b Chambers (2002) pp. 154–185.
- ^ Nieuwland (2004) pp. 1–11.
- ^ Shipman (1998) p. 110.
- ^ Weishampel, Dodson & Osmólska (2004) p. 220.
- ^ a b Ries (2007) pp. 1–19.
- ^ Alexander & Vogel (2004) p. 197.