Dinosaur fossils & 3D skeletons › Archaeopteryx
Archaeopteryx Fossil & 3D Skeleton
Archaeopteryx lithographica
- Age
- Jurassic, about 147.1 million years ago
- Found in
- Germany
- Length
- 0.4 m
- Height
- 0.2 m
- Estimated mass
- about 0.2 kg
- Group
- Bird-like relatives (others)
How this 3D skeleton was made
This 3D model is a reconstruction. Most bone shapes (120 of 168) are borrowed from close relatives and fitted to this species' size and body proportions. The bone shapes are not the actual shapes of this species' fossils. 30 bones were shaped from photos or figures of this species' own fossils. 18 are estimated.
From this species 30Borrowed from relatives 120Estimated 18
Bones known from fossils
There is no record yet of which bones are known from fossils.
Tap a bone on the 3D page to see where each bone shape came from.
Sources
- 3D Skeleton: Bone shapes were borrowed from the "Mei" model (T13). The lengths of the 10 body parts (head, neck, torso, tail, upper arm, forearm, hand, thigh, shin, and foot) were scaled part by part to match the actual measurements of the Archaeopteryx 3D skeletal model (specimen MfN MB.Av.101) from Dempsey et al. (2025) Biol Rev doi:10.1111/brv.70026 (CC BY 4.0). The individual bone shapes are not from this species, but from the model species. Source of the model skeleton: 3D Skeleton: Assembled on this site. This specimen (DNHM D2154) was found crushed flat in a curled sleeping posture, lacking lateral photographs of each individual bone. Therefore, bone shapes were borrowed from bones created from photographs of the related Buitreraptor (Gianechini et al. 2018, CC BY 4.0), and lengths were from the measurement table of this specimen (Gao et al. 2012 PLOS ONE Supplementary S2, CC BY 4.0: femur 65, tibiotarsus Pose (2026-09-30): The bone orientations from Pacheco et al. 2019 PeerJ (CC BY) Fig. 1H (full skeletal diagram/walking pose of Gnathovorax) were read pixel by pixel and used as is (front leg: femur 50 degrees forward, shin 46 degrees backward, instep 24 degrees forward; back leg: femur 12 degrees backward, shin 67 degrees backward, instep 16 degrees forward; arm: upper arm 40 degrees backward, forearm 66 degrees forward). Since the diagram shows only one arm, the far arm was swung slightly forward (estimated). The height of both foot soles was leveled by finding the angle of the back leg's shin (and instep, if needed). The sideways turn of the neck and sideways bend of the tail are estimated (the diagram is only a side view). Rather than an illustration of this species walking, bone orientations were applied from illustrations of related species with the same walking style. The neck was turned slightly sideways and the tail bent sideways (the extent of the angle is estimated; the diagram is only a side view).
- This species is not included in the theropod bone table (Cashmore et al. 2021) (birds are excluded from the table). Since there are no per-bone records, it is colored gray = unknown.
More fossils & 3D skeletons
TyrannosaurusTriceratopsMosasaurusSpinosaurusPteranodonStegosaurusBrachiosaurusGiganotosaurusAnkylosaurusTherizinosaurusAllosaurusBaryonyxVelociraptorDeinonychusParasaurolophusPachycephalosaurusCarnotaurusQuetzalcoatlusDeinosuchusYutyrannusBrontosaurusOviraptorCeratosaurusIguanodonPlesiosaurusArgentinosaurusDiplodocusIchthyosaurusDilophosaurusFutabasaurusDimetrodonFukuiraptorSarcosuchusElasmosaurusEdmontosaurusFukuisaurusKamuysaurusMicroraptorCompsognathusApatosaurusRhamphorhynchusMamenchisaurusDeinocheirusLiopleurodonKronosaurusGallimimusProtoceratopsEoraptorHeterodontosaurus