Ancient bird fossils have 'the weirdest feathers I have ever seen'

[Judi Lynn]

Unusual feathers preserved in 100-million-year-old Cretaceous amber could have been used as defensive decoys. PIERRE COCKX/RSM

Ancient bird fossils have ‘the weirdest feathers I have ever seen’
By John PickrellDec. 14, 2018 , 8:00 AM

One hundred million years ago, the sky was filled with birds unlike those seen today, many with long, streamerlike tail feathers. Now, paleontologists have found examples of these paired feathers preserved in exquisite detail in 31 pieces of Cretaceous amber from Myanmar. The rare 3D preservation reveals the feathers’ structure is completely different from that of modern feathers—and hints that they may have been defensive decoys to foil predators.

Such tail streamers—in some cases longer than the bodies—have been observed in early bird fossils from China for several decades, in particular, the 125-million-year-old Confuciusornis sanctus. They may also be present in some feathered dinosaurs. Scientists have long thought the feathers were ornamental, similar to the tail feathers in some modern hummingbirds and birds of paradise—and that they may have been unique to either males or females, as only a subset of fossils of some species possess them.

But most of those fossils are squished almost flat, making the structure of the feathers near impossible to study. “These new discoveries change the game—the fossils are astoundingly beautiful,” says Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the work.

Now, an international team of researchers, led Lida Xing at the China University of Geosciences in Beijing, have analyzed these feathers, many of them found paired, in 31 pieces of 100-million-year-old amber from Myanmar. “They are the weirdest feathers I have ever seen,” says co-author Jingmai O’Connor, who studies fossil birds at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.

More:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/ancient-bird-fossils-have-weirdest-feathers-i-have-ever-seen