Montana coprolite feathers may explain modern birds' survival
Scientists discovered 66-million-year-old bird feathers within dinosaur fossilized excrement in Montana. The findings suggest that specific feather properties and molting patterns may have helped modern bird ancestors survive the Cretaceous extinction event.
Why it matters
This discovery provides new evolutionary insights into how certain avian lineages survived mass extinction while others perished.
--> In Montana, United States, scientists studied feathers preserved in a 66-million-year-old coprolite — the fossilized excrement of a large dinosaur. Along with scales of a gar and leg bones of a hesperornithiform water bird, the researchers found well-preserved feather remains. As ScienceDaily reports , their structure may offer a clue as to why Neornithes — the branch from which all modern birds descend — survived the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period.
The study results were published in the journal Current Biology. The specimen was found in 2016 by researcher David DeMar Jr. during fieldwork in northeastern Montana. After analyzing its mineral composition, specialists scanned it using computed tomography, which made it possible to see the fossil's internal structure without destroying it.
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