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New Triassic Reptile Has Enormous Crest Unknown to Science That Upends Feather Evolution Theories
NORTHEASTERN FRANCE, JUL 24 – Mirasaura grauvogeli had feather-like plumes 70 million years before true feathers, revealing complexity in reptile skin evolution, researchers said.
- An international team published a study in Nature revealing Mirasaura grauvogeli, a 247-million-year-old Triassic reptile with a large feather-like crest from northeastern France.
- Researchers discovered Mirasaura's complex crest structures while examining fossils from the Middle Triassic Grès à Voltzia site, challenging previous beliefs about skin evolution in reptiles.
- Analyses show Mirasaura belonged to the Drepanosauromorpha clade at the base of reptile evolution and had appendages similar in melanosome shape to feathers but lacking branching.
- Dr. Rossi explained that the features found in Mirasaura resemble those involved in the formation of feathers, while Dr. Spiekman emphasized that this finding provides fresh insights into the evolutionary history of these structures.
- This discovery forces scientists to rethink the timing and diversity of feather-like skin appendages, implying such traits evolved earlier and in more reptiles than previously thought.
12 Articles
12 Articles
New Triassic Reptile Has Enormous Crest Unknown to Science That Upends Feather Evolution Theories
A newly-declared species of 247 million-year-old Triassic reptile and its ridiculously large crest has left scientists scratching their heads. The crest is unlike anything seen before, and was neither made out of skin, as in the case of pterosaur crests, nor feathers, as in the case of raptors and eventually birds. It wasn’t a kind […] The post New Triassic Reptile Has Enormous Crest Unknown to Science That Upends Feather Evolution Theories appe…
Mirasaura grauvogeli shows how creative evolution was – and how Ur-Saurier looked for attention.
UCC palaeontologists discover new fossil reptile species
An international team of researchers, including palaeontologists at University College Cork (UCC), has discovered a new species of fossil reptile from the Triassic period that had a large crest made of complex plume-like structures - long before modern-type feathers evolved.
Scientists uncover fossil of 247-million-year-old reptile with unique skin crest
A previously unknown reptile species with a striking skin crest has been identified by Dutch paleontologist Stephan Spiekman and an international research team. The reptile, named Mirasaura, lived 247 million years ago in what is now northern France, during the Triassic period, shortly after a mass extinction event reshaped life on Earth, NOS reports.
A small reptile with feathers never seen makes it rewrite the evolution - Global Happenings
Rewrites the history of evolution The fossil of a small reptile unknown lived 247 million years ago: on the back it was equipped with a crest with PEUME similar structureswhich shows that I am not the exclusive prerogative of the birds and their dinosaurs relatives. The discovery, published in the magazine Nature, is due to the research coordinated by the Museum of Natural History of Stuttgart, in Germany, which was attended by an Italian resear…
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