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Thursday, April 21, 2022
Scientists led by paleontologists from University College Cork, Ireland published findings Wednesday in Nature that pterosaurs, prehistoric dinosaur-like beings, may have had colorful feathers.
The multinational team of scientists examined a fossilized headcrest from Tupandactylus imperator that lived over two hundred million years ago in present-day Brazil. They found a rim of fossilized structures of different sizes and textures they say are feathers. After imaging the preserved melanin pigment in the feathers with an electron microscope, the team also predicted the presence of color.
These findings place the evolution of feathers in animals about one hundred million years earlier than past estimates. Evidence that the feathers may have been brightly colored also suggests that, just as colors help modern animals identify each other and communicate, ancient animals may have benefitted this way.
“We didn’t expect to see this at all”, said team co-leader Dr. Aude Cincotta: “For decades paleontologists have argued about whether pterosaurs had feathers. The feathers in our specimen close off that debate for good as they are very clearly branched all the way along their length, just like birds today”.
This is not the first evidence of feathers in pterosaurs overall. Scientists have observed their small size and lack of branching and concluded that they could not have been used for flight. They believe the animals may have used feathers to keep warm, as mammals do with fur. However, the study’s authors say the feathers observed in the present study do show branching, and that the elongated shape of the melanosome bodies within the cells suggests color.
The fossil was found in Brazil’s Crato formation, which contains sediment dating from the Cretaceous Period. Records do not show who found it, but a private collector donated it to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences . It did not return to Brazil until February, when it arrived at the Museum of Earth Sciences in Rio de Janeiro. Many fossils have been illegally smuggled out of Brazil.
While pterosaurs are not dinosaurs, they are both, along with birds, placed in the taxonomic group Avemetatarsalia.