Feathers evolved millions of years before birds

[Logo7]

A new study by researchers from the University of Bristol suggests that feathers appeared 100 million years before the first birds did, changing our understanding of feathers, their functions, and their role in evolution. This study is based on the earlier discovery of a pair of pterosaur specimens in China that appear to possess feathers, which suggests that feathers originated much further back in the evolutionary tree than the point where birds originated. This study pushes back the origin of feathers from 200 million years ago to 250 million years ago, the point where the earliest common ancestors of pterosaurs, dinosaurs, birds, and their relatives first appeared. This suggests that feathers could be a basal trait of all of these groups. Here is a link to the paper describing this study.

Paper (abstract only): https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(19)30140-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0169534719301405%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

I thought this had been known (or at least strongly suggested) for a year or so now?

[Logo7]

I thought this had been known (or at least strongly suggested) for a year or so now?

I'm pretty sure it was too. But this paper was published in June of 2019, so I figured I should still post about it.

[ITdactyl]

Still waiting for the pterosaur experts to loudly proclaim that pycnofibers are feathers after all. But I guess some are still unconvinced(?).

[Halichoeres]

The paper describing the pterosaur didn't make the claim very explicitly, only suggested the possibility. This is a more formal analysis/optimization.

[Neosodon]

If the common ancestor of all dinosaurs had feathers that would certainly raise allot of questions. Like why do they appear almost exclusively in Coelurosaurs? If this were so it seems feathers would be dispersed evenly throughout the dinosaur family tree rather than belonging to a single clade. It could just be that Coelurosaurs had life styles with a greater need for feathers. But then why wouldn't pterosaurs have evolved in a manner more similar to birds?

The article refers to simple monofilaments. I'm not sure how strict the criteria is for calling something a feather. But I don't think it would take much of a stretch to include pycnofibers. Stretch it a little further up the tree of life, then maybe even we have feathers.

[stargatedalek]

While the common ancestor certainly didn't have feathers proper (which are not almost exclusive to coelurosaurs, rather they are only known from coelurosaurs [ornithopods have a distinct integument]), the idea that a common ancestor of dinosaurs and pterosaurs would have soft integument has been quite frankly a no-brainer for years.

Crocodilians and birds use the same genes to develop their soft integument, that alone shows that the ancestor of crocodilians was at some point also sporting something similar. For a good while this was most of what we had to go off of and this means that soft integument was basal to the archosaurs prior to the crocodile ornithodiran split and then either A) disappeared and reappeared several times, taking on similar shapes each time, or B) was the "default" appearance at least among ornithodirans but was lost in many groups (explaining why most scaled dinosaurs have scales very distinct from other groups and from traditional reptiles).

The recent discovery of pterosaurs with complex, branched pycnofibres more similar in structure to traditional feathers practically confirms option B, though begs the question if the branched structure was developed twice or if it was lost in ornithopods.