Early birds had dino-feet: study

A 150-million-year-old fossil of Archaeopteryx, long considered the oldest bird, may put to rest any scientific doubt that dinosaurs”specifically the group of two-legged meat-eaters known as theropods”gave rise to modern birds.The skull is the only Archaeopteryx specimen that reveals a bird's-eye view of the species' upper head surface."[It] presents important new details of the skull morphology [shape and function] of the earliest known bird," he said, "showing also that the skull of Archaeopteryx is much more similar to that of nonavian theropod dinosaurs than previously thought."The animal's feet, both of them perfectly preserved, attracted the researchers' particular attention.Archaeopteryx, the fossil shows, had a hyperextendible second toe. Until now, the feature was thought to belong only to the species' close relatives, the deinonychosaurs. (The name means "fearsome claws." The deinonychosaur Velociraptor wielded switchblade-like examples of these talons in the movie Jurrasic Park.)Contrary to all previous reconstructions of Archaeopteryx, the hind toe of the new specimen is not completely reversed to form a "perching" foot as it is in modern birds.In the new fossil, the foot looks more like that of the four-toed foot of Velociraptor and its other nonwinged theropod relatives. The specimen clearly lacks a reversed toe.The shape and articulation of other bones of the new specimen also help tie Archaeopteryx to the theropods.The bones of its hind legs, for example, have played an important role in the dispute about bird ancestry. The new Archaeopteryx specimen shows a clearly visible hind leg bone structure that is identical to that of theropod dinosaurs.

... I actually don't exercise at all well when restrained...

It's the new Scylla and Charybdis, but the same old song and dance.

Is the new specimen conclusive evidence for a ground-inhabiting Archaeopteryx?

... evidence that Archaeopteryx lived in trees at all?