A microscopic examination of fossils from China has revealed that the fur-like body covering of pterosaurs, the remarkable flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs, was actually made up of rudimentary feathers. The surprising discovery described by scientists on Monday means that dinosaurs and their bird descendants were not the only creatures to boast feathers and that feathers likely appeared much longer ago than previously known. Short, hair-like feathers covered their bodies and wings but lacked the strong central shaft of avian flight feathers, the researchers said. “They were not flight feathers,” said paleontologist Baoyu Jiang of Nanjing University, who led the research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Many of the filaments, under the microscope, showed branching like in feathers but not hair.

Source: The Hindu December 18, 2018 16:41 UTC