THE enigmatic structures on the back of a small 鈥渇eathered dinosaur鈥�
found last year are not true feathers, say four leading American
palaeontologists who have just returned from examining fossil specimens in
China. John Ostrom of Yale University says they are long parallel arrays of
fibres that lack the branching pattern of modern feathers.
The feathered dinosaur, found in China鈥檚 Liaoning province, was greeted by
some palaeontologists as a missing link between dinosaurs and birds (鈥淏irds do
it鈥id dinosaurs?鈥�, New Scientist, 1 February, p 27). They
argued that some warm-blooded dinosaurs evolved downy feathers, which were later
adapted for flight. But other experts were not convinced.
Hoping to resolve the question, the Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia sent Ostrom and three other experts to China to examine the
fossils. Exactly what the little dinosaur had on its back remains a mystery,
which leaves the precise relationship between dinosaurs and birds uncertain.
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