Feathered dinosaurs Archives

The mystery of feather origins: how fluffy pterosaurs have reignited debate

Reconstruction. Yuan Zhang Maria McNamara, University College Cork and Zixiao Yang, Nanjing University When fossils of the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, were first discovered almost 160 years ago, the find created a puzzle that has troubled palaeontologists ever since. These fossils were celebrated for their chimera-like combination of supposedly reptilian features (such as a bony tail and jaws with teeth) …