/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10401777
>but why though
Because it has similar features to both birds and dinosaurs. You know the claw on the back of a dog's leg? That's what they have instead of thumbs. Even whales and dolphins have a similar structure in their fins.
You can compare how organisms are similar and different to infer how the evolution may have happened.

>why can't it be considered a separate species entirely?
Likely because it wasn't convenient to. Taxonomy, the way science names things, is pretty arbitrary. There's no reason to call a dolphin a fish, even though people used to think they were a fish. Dolphins have too much in common with other mammals, so we consider them a mammal, even though they look more like fish than your typical mammal.

>to jump from "birb to intermediate to reptile" is still a fucking massive leap. just because we have a potential intermediate isn't evidence as we're still missing a loooooot of change in between
There was a massive amount of time between dinosaurs and birds too. This one creature is just the first fossil to be found that linked birds to the dinosaurs, and it was in the 1860s. There have been plenty of new discoveries since then, even feathers from a dinosaur.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/feathered-dinosaur-tail-amber-theropod-myanmar-burma-cretaceous/