are modern birds more related to archaeopteryx or to the fir...

are modern birds more related to archaeopteryx or to the first reptiles?

Actually, Archaeopteryx evolved from the first reptiles. In time animals similar to Archaeopteryx evolved into birds. So they're related to Archaeopteryx and the first reptiles equally since Archaeopteryx itself was related to the first reptiles.

Random Scientist Inc.

Random Scientist Inc. said it very well. I'll just add this simplified family tree in the hope that it might make things more clear.

I was looking at your family tree and was a little confused. You have Archaeopteryx at the very end of your tree. Archaeopteryx lived way before its punitive ancestors such as Deinonychus and Velociraptor. At least 20 million years before Deinonychus and the Tyrannosaurids, 65 to 70 million years before Velociraptor.
Thanks, Al

Hi Al.
I did call it a simplified family tree. But the details are quite interesting, so let us dive into them

Palaeonthologists say that Archaeopteryx and birds are closely related with Troodontids and Dromaeosaurs ( aka "raptors" ) Such a relationship dictates that the last common ancestor of Birds, Troodontids, and Dromaeosaurs must be at least slightly older than the oldest known member of each group. Only very few species that have ever lived, are eventually found and described by scientists, so we may never find fossils of exactly the ancestor species. But some fossils of these "putative ancestors" seem to be quite close to the root..

As you point out, derived dromaeosaurs like Velociraptor are some 70 million years younger than Archaeopteryx, so they are of course not the ancestors of Archie. Fortunately much older raptors have been found, such as Sinornithosaurus and the gliding Microraptor, who are only 20-30 million years younger than Archie.
Troodontids are known from even older layers, especially Anchiornis, known from 160 to 155 million year old fossils. Older than Archie

Pedopenna is also older than Archie but only known from a fossilized hind leg. It looks like a primitive raptor but may also be a primitive troodontid. (In fact it is so close to the root of both lineages, that is hard to tell where it belongs). Pedopenna is from the Daohugou Beds in China. The age of this geologic formation is uncertain, but it is probably somewhere between 169 and 152 million years old.
Epidexipteryx and Epidendrosaurus (aka Scansoriopteryx) are found in the same geological layers as Pedopenna and their skeletons are very much like that of Archaeopteryx. So much that they are considered close to Archie.

Epidexipteryx, Anchiornis, Pedopenna, and Microraptor were all feathered dinosaurs the size of a crow, just like Archaeopteryx. Their arms were proportionally long compared to the legs, just like Archaeopteryx. Anchiornis, Pedopenna, and Microraptor all had long feathers on their hind legs just like Archaeopteryx, and so on. Although they were evolving in different directions, their many shared characteristics indicate that we are getting close to the body shape of the common source.

Once again I've spend some time in Microsoft Paint. This is the detailed family tree of the Paravians as it is currently understood. For simplicity I've left out a great many species of Cretaceous troodontids, dromaeosaurs, and birds. The dashed red line is of course the KT extinction.

(edit: that picture became very small once posted. Here's a link to the full version http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/8923/paraves02.jpg)

The take-home message is this; Birds did not evolve from an animal exactly like Velociraptor, but they evidently share a common ancestor with Velociraptor. And the fossils indicate that this common ancestor was a small, light weight, feathered, possibly gliding, Microraptor/Anchiornis/Epidendrosaurus-kinda creature from the early or middle Jurassic. New fossils may lead us towards a different picture, but this is what the evidence points to at present.

So Modern birds related to archaeopteryx.Right ?

That is reasonble to assume. Because Archaeopteryx is the oldest known bird that had full primary and secondary flight feathers as modern birds do.

Ya, i know that.Archaeopteryx is the first.I was thinking about the birds which existed during the tertiary and quaternary period that related more to modern birds.

SameerPrehistorica wrote:

So Modern birds related to archaeopteryx.Right ?

All known species are related to each other. But yes, Archaeopteryx has skeletal features that place it slightly closer to birds than to troodonts and dromaeosaurs.

But once again I'd like to point some attention towards Anchiornis, the basal troodontid that was described last year from fossils 10-15 million years older than Archie. It confirms quite beautifully what Microraptor and Jinfengopteryx had already shown us years ago; pennaceous flight feathers are not restricted to Archaeopteryx and other birds, in fact they are a standard feature among basal paravians.