Feathers not Unique to Birds: Chinese Scientists

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, February 23, 2003

Feathers not Unique to Birds: Chinese Scientists

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The finding of a variety of feathered dinosaur fossils in China has convinced Chinese scientists that birds evolved from dinosaurs and that feathers are definitely not unique to birds as people have long assumed.

Zhou Zhonghe, a leading dinosaur expert, said in the latest issue of the respected Britain-based Nature magazine that feathered dinosaurs were valuable evidence of the origin of feathers and how birds began to fly.

The findings also provided important clues on redefining dinosaurs' physiological characteristics, Zhou added.

Feathers appeared on some species of dinosaurs that could run at fast speeds and had few evolutionary links with birds, such as Caudipteryx and the species unearthed in China, Sinosauropteryx prima. These early feathers then developed an even more complicated structure in later species, and finally became very similar to those of typical birds today.

"These (feathered) dinosaurs were unable to fly, proving feathers were certainly not the unique feature of birds. The findings have shown that feathers were widely seen on Theropod dinosaurs," Zhou said.

But experts point to the difficulty of accurately determining the function of feathers when they first appeared, probably in the interests of camouflage, attracting a mate, or helping dinosaurs run and jump. There was no doubt however that feathers could help readjust body temperature or hatching, experts said.

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