Feathered fossil still stirs debate
By Sid Perkins
Pity poor little Caudipteryx, an animal that undoubtedly would be suffering an identity crisis if it were still around.
Researchers who first described the 120-million-year-old fossils of the turkey-size species in 1998 claimed the animal’s ancestors were meat-eating dinosaurs (SN: 6/27/98, p. 404: https://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/6_27_98/fob1.htm). Even though Caudipteryx obviously had feathers on its short tail and forelimbs, it lacked many other typical features of birds. Other scientists vehemently argued that the species was neither a dinosaur nor a link between dinosaurs and birds. Instead, they claimed, it was a flightless descendent of more-ancient birds.