Flightless dino-bird wore full-body feathers
New Archaeopteryx fossil complicates plumage evolution
A fully feathered fossil of the dinosaur-like bird Archaeopteryx is ruffling scientists’ understanding of what drove early feather evolution, scientists report July 2 in Nature.
Archaeopteryx was one of the earliest birds, spanning the evolutionary gap between feathered dinosaurs and modern birds. The flightless fowl roamed 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period and grew to the size of a well-fed pigeon.
Paleontologist Christian Foth of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and colleagues examined a recently unearthed Archaeopteryx