Feathery friend: Beipiaosaurus is the first dino found to have broad, single-filament feathers, researchers say.
Credit: Zhao Chuang and Xing Lida
NEW YORK: 125 million year-old dinosaur fossils found in China may help scientists unravel the evolution of the feather.
The Beipiaosaurus fossils contain broad feather-like structures consisting of a single filament, a kind never before observed in the fossil record.
Previously, only non-avian fossils with slender, multi-filament feathers have been reported.
Something old, something new
The new, unbranched specimens may be the earliest example of feathers discovered, and "support the hypothesis that feathers evolved and initially diversified in non-avian [dinosaurs] before the origin of birds and the evolution of flight," said Chinese palaeontologists, documenting the find this week in the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Found in the north-western Chinese province of Liaoning, where finely grained rocks preserve minute details very well, the feather fossils provide a missing piece in the fossil record of feathered creatures (though the Beipiaosaurus itself is not an evolutionary missing link), the researchers said.
Scientists have long believed that the developmental patterns of the feathers in modern birds could be traced through their prehistoric ancestors. With the Beipiaosaurus feathers bridging the spectrum of ancient feather development, the new fossils indeed support this idea:
"[The find] helps reconcile the idea that the stages we've seen in the development of a feather in a living bird actually match up with patterns in the fossil record," said Peter Makovicky, Associate Curator of Dinosaurs and Chair of Geology at the U.S. Field Museum in Chicago, who was not involved in the research.
Reconstructing history
One factor that is not entirely clear from the new fossils is whether or not the feather-like structures were hollow. If they were, the researchers said, this would provide further evidence linking them to the feathers of living birds, which are also unfilled.
This would be interesting to establish, Makovicky said, but could only be confirmed if another Beipiaosaurus specimen was found preserved in a way making the hollowness evident - a significant challenge in fossil research.
But study co-author Xing Xu, a palaeontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, is excited about the further work and challenges to come. His team will be digging deeper into the Jurassic sediments in Liaoning in search of more bird-like dinosaurs, he said.
They hope to be eventually able to completely reconstruct the dinosaur-to-bird evolutionary transition.
Feathers
It's so satisfying when fossil discoveries keep confirming the predictions indicated by evolutionary models and theory. Eventually 'The God of the Gaps' will disappear in a small puff of irrelevance.
If not there...
Hehe, but then he'd reappear elsewhere. Thus I propose the, 'God aiding in the ignition of your internal combustion engine on a cold winter morning' theory; as a headstart for those who will follow. ^_^
i went through the
i went through the ineresting article and issue of Natural Geography.
Some basic questions : 1. what is the purpose of development? Is it a 'need' or ' result of interaction of living being to fight environment ?