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[4] [5] Fossil feathers from the dinosaur Sinosauropteryx contain traces of beta-proteins (formerly called beta-keratins), confirming that early feathers had a composition similar to that of feathers in modern birds. [6] Crocodilians also possess beta keratin similar to those of birds, which suggests that they evolved from common ancestral ...
While Sinosauropteryx had feather-like structures, it was not very closely related to the previous "first bird" Archaeopteryx. [2] There are many dinosaur clades that were more closely related to Archaeopteryx than Sinosauropteryx was, including the deinonychosaurians, the oviraptorosaurians, and the therizinosauroids. [8]
Dromaeosaurids are so bird-like that they have led some researchers to argue that they would be better classified as birds. First, since they had feathers, dromaeosaurids (along with many other coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs) are "birds" under traditional definitions of the word "bird", or "Aves", that are based on the possession of feathers.
The pterosaur suggests feathers emerged around 250 million years ago through the common ancestor of dinosaurs, birds and pterosaurs -- and shifts the origin of feathers to 100 million years ...
Dinosaur eggs vary greatly in size and shape, but even the largest dinosaur eggs (Megaloolithus) are smaller than the largest known bird eggs, which were laid by the extinct elephant bird. Dinosaur eggs range in shape from spherical to highly elongated (some specimens three times longer than they are wide). Some elongated eggs are symmetrical ...
The embryo-containing eggs - leathery on the outside rather than hard and calcified like those of birds - belonged to a dinosaur from Patagonia called Mussaurus from about 200 million years ago ...
Caudipteryx (meaning "tail feather") is a genus of small oviraptorosaur dinosaurs that lived in Asia during the Early Cretaceous, around 124.6 million years ago.They were feathered and extremely birdlike in their overall appearance, to the point that some paleontologists suggested it was a bird.
The fossils show that the dinosaurs had a diversity of tufted hair-like "proto-feathers," which would have been used for insulation. The fossils also showed body and wing feathers that would have ...