Dr. Duane Gish, in his book Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record asks: "If dinosaurs evolved from other reptiles over millions of years, why do we not find even one example of a transitional form in the fossil record?" Gish points out that paleontologists have never found, for example, any evidence that Stegosaurus evolved from an earlier form, showing the gradual development of tail spikes, plates, etc. He says this is true of every dinosaur ever found, whether Brachiosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, [Tyrannosaurus skeleton "Scotty" is currently being excavated near Eastend, Saskatchewan] or any other dinosaur; each type appears in the fossil record fully formed, right from the start.

Mr. Poling:

Dr. Gish's book was published in 1985, meaning it was written more than ten years ago. Fossil discoveries have come so thick and fast recently that books written just 5 years ago are hopelessly out of date. These days, we do have a fossil record showing progression in many of our favorite Dinosaurs. I recently saw a picture of the fossil of an early Stegosaur that not only had budding spikes and plates, it was a faculative biped, in the process of evolving quadrupedality from the primitive dinosaurian condition of obligate bipedality. This biped to quadruped progression is shown in the fossil record of many of the other quadrupedal dinosaurs, including the Sauropods.

Addendum:

When you get right down to it, every species is a transitional form. It is transitional between the species that came before it and the species that will come after it. However, as noted on earlier pages, there is no such thing as a transitional form as traditionally used and as used above.

Here are some pictures (not to scale) of fossils showing the progression in the evolution of three of our favorite kinds of dinosaurs, fossils that Dr. Gish claims don't exist.

STEGOSAURS

Fig 1: Scelidosaurus, 203.5 mya

Fig 2: Huayangosaurus, 166.1 mya

Fig 3: Stegosaurus, 152.1 mya

SAUROPODS

Fig 4: Thecodontosaurus, 223.4 mya

Fig 5: Plateosaurus, 216.5 mya

Fig 6: Riojasaurus, 209.5 mya

CERATOPIANS

Fig 7: Top view of Psittacosaurus, 124.5 mya	Fig 8: Protoceratops, 86.6 mya
Fig 9: Chasmosaurus, 83.0 mya	Fig 10: Triceratops, 74.0 mya