
Pterosaur reconstruction/Yuan Zhang.
Researchers hope that their findings will change how we look at dinosaurs, birds, and pterosaurs, the flying reptiles:
The key discovery came earlier in 2019, when feathers were reported in pterosaurs – if the pterosaurs really carried feathers, then it means these structures arose deep in the evolutionary tree, much deeper than at the point when birds originated… Co-author, Baoyu Jiang from the University of Nanjing, added: “At first, the dinosaurs with feathers were close to the origin of birds in the evolutionary tree.
“This was not so hard to believe. So, the origin of feathers was pushed back at least to the origin of those bird-like dinosaurs, maybe 200 million years ago.”
Dr Maria McNamara, co-author from University College Cork, said: “Then, we had the good fortune to work on a new dinosaur from Russia, Kulindadromeus.
“This dinosaur showed amazingly well-preserved skin covered with scales on the legs and tail, and strange whiskery feathers all over its body.
“What surprised people was that this was a dinosaur that was as far from birds in the evolutionary tree as could be imagined. Perhaps feathers were present in the very first dinosaurs.” …
“So, the dinosaurs, pterosaurs and their ancestors had feathers too. Feathers then probably arose to aid this speeding up of physiology and ecology, purely for insulation. The other functions of feathers, for display and of course for flight, came much later.” “Feathers came first, then birds” at University of Bristol
Maybe those 200 mya feathers were just for insulation. But maybe there are more surprises yet. Marcos Eberlin is probably right. Evolution has Foresight. 😉
Paper. (paywall)
See also: Feathers Originated 70 Million Years Earlier Than Thought
and
Stasis: Life goes on but evolution does not happen
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Now that’s really cool, now if this pans out the first thing out of the mouth of someone like Jerry Coyne would be to come up with a function of the feather for the dinosaur and say it was repurposed for the bird, even though this still shows a form Teleology and creativity. This is pretty cool though
They should be focusing on what genetic changes can produce feathers in populations that never had them. Or if such a thing is even possible. But it’s easier to just assume it.
There have been strong suggestions for years (decades?) that some of the ancient “birds” with feathers were probably NOT capable of flight. And while not trying to second guess The Design Team for “Project BIRD”, installing a better insulation system may have been part of the Warm Blood design team’s work. There ain’t much point in generating mucho heato and simply DUMPING IT into the ambient air. It’s clearly easier to design and build a “heating and ventilation system” if you have ways to stabilize heat loss. Or maybe one of the guys (or gals) just thought adding feathers would be a cool way to display racing stripes or school colors. But it’s pretty obvious that there is no INCREMENTAL advantage to proto-feathers, from a descent with modification point of view.
How scales became feathers: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42082489
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/human-hair-bird-feathers-came-reptile-scales
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/alligator-scales-feathers-turned-into-dinosaurs-learn-fly-how-understand-a8069011.html
Thank you Pater. It appears that no one knows how feathers came into existence. But someone seems to be trying to figure it out.