Do you know that lots of dinosaurs used to have feathers, just like modern birds?
New research has revealed that modern bird feathers are way more similar to ancient dinosaur feathers than scientists once thought.
This finding shows how feathers evolved over millions of years.
More about the findings
Scientists studied feathers from three ancient creatures: a 125 million-year-old non-bird dinosaur, a 125 million-year-old early bird called Confuciusornis, and an unidentified species from 50 million years ago.
By using X-rays and also infrared light, researchers found something surprising: these ancient feathers contained a protein called corneous beta-proteins (CBPs), which were previously thought to be different from the proteins in modern bird feathers.
However, when they looked at feathers from today's birds like zebra finches, they discovered that they also had similar proteins.
Scientists used to think differently
Before this discovery, scientists believed that ancient feathers had mostly different proteins called alpha proteins, which aren't as strong as CBPs.
But this new information suggests that the ancient feathers were mainly made of CBPs and that these proteins transformed into alpha proteins during the fossilization process.
This means that our previous understanding of ancient feathers was mistaken.
