Primitive feathers found in fossilized amber from Late Cretaceous

[danischi24]

Very cool discovery AquaEyes!

 

[ivan3]

FYI: PBS NOVA episode: The Four-Winged Dinosaur is available on Youtube (working out the aerodynamics in China).

I know I posted the following link, the other day, in a different thread (more humorous than serious) but, for those here:

(brief explanation):

I came across an Atomic Energy Commission's (now DOE) publication that was initiated in the `40's and was published in `69: An Atlas Of The Domestic Turkey (Myology and Osteology). It was listed in the AEC/DOE's Database but, hadn't been digitized. I hunted around for a while and finally secured a hard copy from a bookseller who told me that a Chinese Paleontologist had called about how to pay for and ship the book - I immediately bought it. After receiving it, I realized that it should be available to everyone (those interested in comparative anatomy) for free. I called the nice lady down in Oak Ridge and ponied up the freight. I hope some detail (and it is detailed) will further the journey.

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=4811958

thanks for the thread (camped-out on an anticline of Marmaton limestone - brachiopods that fly!... when I throw them

)

 

[centrarchid]

More about coloration and this critter still not considered a bird.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46671488/ns/technology_and_science-science/

 

[AquaEyes]

Very cool! I think it's fascinating that feathers, previously considered a defining characteristic of birds, actually evolved earlier. We assumed they were unique to birds because there are no living intermediates or related species that blur the distinctions. Now we are finding that feathers evolved in a branch of dinosaurs before birds split off, but birds are the only examples that survived to the present.

I'm thinking that the most primitive feathers were advantageous primarily in the realm of visual communication. When I see the microscopic images of "proto-feathers" they remind me of tiny versions of the adornments seen on reptiles today -- the various horns, spikes, shingles, etc. The genetic steps between scales and "proto-feathers" are small, suggesting a progression one mutation at a time. If we think of the path to feathers as something more akin to "funky scales that got ever funkier" it's easier to visualize, and falls in line with genetic evidence.