Birds and their Feathers

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the origin of feathers is unknown and how scientists have researched the topic. and none of the theories have even come close to being proved. It looks at how the mystery of the evolution of feathers is closely linked with the origin of birds themselves and how there is various evidence that shows that birds have evolved from small, predatory dinosaurs, known as theropods. It also examines the theory that, although the evolution of feathers and flight were always intimately linked, new fossils discovered in China show that feathers originated even before the evolution of flights or birds.

From the Paper:

"A bird's most distinctive attribute is its feathers. Traditionally it was thought that the evolution of feathers was linked to the origin of flight, but studies now confirm that feathers existed even in the non-flying dinosaurs, which shows that feathers pre-dated the origin of both flight and birds. The actual progress of feathers is not fully known because of various misleads one of which actually states that the primitive feather actually came about due to the elongation and division of the reptilian scale, and the misunderstanding that feathers evolved primarily for the function of flight. Another hindrance in the concept is that of the lack of the availability of primitive fossils. Many contributions from several fields have tried to bring about a solution for these problems."

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