A NEWLY discovered fossil bird from China may give a clue as to how feathers
evolved, claim Chinese palaeontologists.
Fucheng Zhang and Zhonghe Zhou of the Institute for Vertebrate Palaeontology
in Beijing discovered the 125-million-year-old Protopteryx in the
Yixian formation in Hebei Province. The fossil has the well-developed flight
feathers and down seen in other early birds, but has two tail feathers that 鈥渁re
scalelike without branching鈥�, they report in Science (vol 290, p
1955).
They believe the tail feathers are hangovers from more primitive ancestors,
which had yet to evolve the elaborate branching barbs of modern feathers. But
Luis Chiappe of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County disagrees. The
feathers look similar to those used by some modern birds in sexual displays, he
says.
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