August 15, 1861

Archaeopteryx

Hermann von Meyer writes the first description of the fossil feather later named Archaeopteryx

It began not with a skeleton but with one feather pressed between the halves of a split limestone slab — and it looked so modern that its describer doubted its age.

A letter to an editor, 15 August

On 15 August 1861 the German palaeontologist Hermann von Meyer wrote to the journal editor Heinrich Georg Bronn, describing a fossil impression preserved on the matching faces of two split slabs from the lithographic limestone at Solnhofen, Bavaria.

He identified the impression as a feather that could not be distinguished morphologically from a bird feather. Because no bird fossils of comparable antiquity were then securely known, his first notice was cautious about whether the feather genuinely came from the ancient Solnhofen deposit.

The name arrived six weeks later

The August communication was the first description, but von Meyer did not introduce the name Archaeopteryx lithographica until a follow-up letter dated 30 September.

In that second letter he reported that he had confirmed the fossil's nature, proposed the name, and relayed news of a recently found feathered skeleton near Langenaltheim.

The 15 August date belongs to the letter itself — not to the journal issue's physical publication, and not to the naming.

Two cities, and an unsettled identification

The two counterpart slabs are now divided between the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin and the Bavarian State Collection in Munich.

Whether the isolated feather belongs to Archaeopteryx at all is still disputed. A 2020 study argued that its morphology is most consistent with an Archaeopteryx wing covert, responding to a contrary interpretation published in 2019.

Even the year of its discovery is loose: the feather is often dated to 1860, but no surviving evidence fixes whether it was found in 1860 or 1861.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

August 15 is securely the date of von Meyer’s first letter, not necessarily the journal issue’s physical publication date and not the date of the formal naming communication.
The feather’s discovery is often dated 1860, but no surviving evidence fixes whether it was found in 1860 or 1861.
Researchers still dispute whether the isolated feather belongs to Archaeopteryx. A 2020 study argued that its morphology is most consistent with an Archaeopteryx wing covert, responding to a 2019 contrary interpretation.