Systematic position of Archaeopteryx challenged?
Archaeopteryx has been considered the most primitive and earliest known bird ever since its discovery, and has been placed at the base of Avialae in nearly all numerical phylogenetic analyses. In 2011, a parsimony-based phylogenetic study incorporating information of a new Archaeopteryx-like theropod, Xiaotingia zhengi, shifted its position from within Avialae, the group that contains modern birds, to Deinonychosauria, a highly diverse group of predatory dinosaurs. Consequently, this new phylogenetic result has gained much attention and received immediate comments. One of these comments questioned the deinonychosaurian affinities of Archaeopteryx by applying probability-based methods to the same dataset and restoring Archaeopteryx to basal Avialae, suggesting these methods should be used more often in palaeontological studies. Is the systematic position of Archaeopteryx shifted?