Mike Keesey wrote:
Why does selective pressure need to be invoked? This is the earliest known winged theropod, and it's probably not too far removed, chronologically, from the very first ones. Long tails are just the ancestral state--perhaps there had not been enough time to "evolve out of them".
Two reasons:
(And, actually, _Archaeopteryx_' tail is rather reduced compared to other theropods of the time.)
Cheers
Tim