Dinosaurs had earliest feathers

Exceptionally well preserved dinosaur fossils uncovered in north-eastern China display the earliest known feathers. The creatures are all more than 150 million years old. The new finds are indisputably older than Archaeopteryx, the oldest recognised bird discovered in Germany. Professor Xu Xing and colleagues tell the journal Nature that this represents the final proof that dinosaurs were ancestral to birds.

The theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs has always been troubled by the absence of feathers more ancient than those on the famous Archaeopteryx. This has given critics room to question the idea. But the new fossils, which come from two separate locations, are in most cases about 10 million years older than the German bird discovered in the late 19th Century.

One of the dinosaurs, named Anchiornis huxleyi, is spectacular in its preservation. It has extensive plumage covering its arms and tail, and also its feet - a four-winged arrangement, says Professor Xu from the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing.


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