First Fossil Feather Ever Found Belonged to This Dinosaur - The New York Times

First Fossil Feather Ever Found Belonged to This Dinosaur - The New York Times

First fossil feather matches Archaeopteryx

The origins of a stunning, single fossil feather — the first fossil feather ever discovered — has tantalised paleontologists since it was found in 1861. Now it’s “case closed”, says paleontologist Ryan Carney: the feather is from an Archaeopteryx. Not only that, it was probably matte black in colour. Carney and colleagues compared the feather’s fine details with those on more-complete Archaeopteryx fossils to make the match. Not everyone is convinced, but scientists welcome the insights into an iconic specimen. “To me, ultimately, the important thing is that this feather belonged to a small-winged Jurassic animal that could fly pretty well,” says vertebrate paleontologist Stephen Brusatte. “No doubt the warm, sunny lagoons of Jurassic Germany were aflutter with lots of flying dinosaurs.”

The New York Times | 5 min readReference: Scientific Reports paper