5. Archaeopteryx
I love Archaeopteryx because it blew the fossil record of dinosaurs wide open. With its discovery in 1861—just two years after the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species—paleontologists could begin to connect the evolutionary dots between purely landlubbing dinosaurs and their flying relatives, birds.
Archaeopteryx could fly, but exactly how remains uncertain. Regardless, its importance in our understanding of dinosaurs and their evolution gives Archaeopteryx its rightful place in the top five best dinosaurs—even if the feathers of the animal are still controversial.
