The origin of birds is one of the most interesting questions in palaeontology and evolution. Birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Mesozoic era.
Thomas Henry Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog"), who was a comparative anatomist, made a study of this nearly 150 years ago. He compared the first fossil bird, Archaeopteryx, with a small theropod dinosaur, Compsognathus. They are two fossils from the same place and time: the Solnhofen limestone in Bavaria, Germany. The strata come from the end of the Jurassic period, about 144 million years ago.