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Fossils of at least some of these animals (Scansoriopteryx and possibly Juravenator) also preserve feathers elsewhere on the body. Though once thought to be a feature exclusive to coelurosaurs, feathers or feather-like structures are also known in some ornithischian dinosaurs (like Tianyulong and Kulindadromeus ), and in pterosaurs .
The feathers were long, up to 20 centimetres (7.9 in), and filamentous. Because the quality of the preservation was low, it could not be established whether the filaments were simple or compound, broad or narrow. The feathers covered various parts of the body. With the holotype they were present on the pelvis and near the foot.
Archaeopteryx (/ ˌ ɑːr k iː ˈ ɒ p t ər ɪ k s /; lit. ' old-wing '), sometimes referred to by its German name, "Urvogel" (lit. Primeval Bird) is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs.The name derives from the ancient Greek ἀρχαῖος (archaīos), meaning "ancient", and πτέρυξ (ptéryx), meaning "feather" or "wing".
The extent to which feathers or feather-like structures were present in dinosaurs as a whole is a subject of ongoing debate and research. It has been suggested that feathers had originally functioned as thermal insulation , as it remains their function in the down feathers of infant birds prior to their eventual modification in birds into ...
Additional patches of feathers have been identified on the sides of the body, and palaeontologists Chen, Dong and Zheng proposed that the density of the feathers on the back and the randomness of the patches elsewhere on the body indicated the animals would have been fully feathered in life, with the ventral feathers having been removed by ...
[7] [8] [9] Dinosaur species very close to the origin of birds have been shown to have had "hind wings" made of feathers growing from these areas, suggesting that the acquisition of feathers in dinosaurs was a whole-body event. [9] The bottoms of bird feet are covered in small, keeled scale-like structures known as reticulae.
Feathers or feather-like structures (filaments) are attested in most lineages of theropods (see feathered dinosaur). However, outside the coelurosaurs, feathers may have been confined to the young, smaller species, or limited parts of the animal. Many larger theropods had skin covered in small, bumpy scales.
The single feather. The initial discovery, a single feather, was unearthed in 1860 or 1861 and described in 1861 by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer.The fossil consists of two counterslabs, designated BSP 1869 VIII 1 (main slab) and MB.Av.100 (counterslab), which are currently located at the Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology and Geology of Munich University and the Natural History ...