Scientists have discovered 125 million-year-old dandruff preserved amongst the plumage of feathered dinosaurs and early birds, revealing the first evidence of how the giant predators shed their skin.Just like human dandruff, the fossil dandruff is made of tough cells called corneocytes, which in life are dry and full of the protein keratin. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that this modern skin feature evolved sometime in the late Middle Jurassic, around the same time as a host of other skin features evolved. What is remarkable is that the fossil dandruff is almost identical to that in modern birds - even the spiral twisting of individual fibres is still visible," said Maria McNamara from University of Bristol in the UK. "There was a burst of evolution of feathered dinosaurs and birds at this time, and it's exciting to see evidence that the skin of early birds and dinosaurs was evolving rapidly in response to bearing feathers," McNamara said. The dandruff is the first evidence of how dinosaurs shed their skin.

Source: dna May 28, 2018 07:27 UTC