Fossil birds sport a new kind of feather
By Sid Perkins
Two fossil specimens of a primitive, starling-size bird that lived about 125 million years ago have tail feathers that, its discoverers say, could reveal how feathers originated.
The new species, which the Chinese paleontologists named Protopteryx fengningensis, is the most primitive known among the birds called enantiornithines. This group at one time included the majority of birds but became extinct by the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago.
Described in the Dec. 8 Science, the new bird sported three types of feathers, says Zhonghe Zhou, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing and coauthor of the report. Two of the types have appeared in other fossils: the downy feathers on Protopteryx‘s head and body and the flight feathers on its wings. However, the bird’s central tail feathers are of a kind that hasn’t been found in ancient birds, the researchers say.