Palaeontologists Find Dinosaur Feathers

When picturing dinosaurs, we often think of them as massive reptilian creatures with lizard like features. For decades, it was a common belief that dinosaurs had smooth skin much like lizards today. While that’s true for a large portion of the species, recent discoveries suggest that there also existed dinosaurs that sported feathers. In a paper published in Gondwana Research, palaeontologists argue that fossils discovered about a century ago are actually proof that feathered dinosaurs inhabited the South Pole. It hints at the possibility that dinosaurs could have adopted feathers to adapt to the cold weather in extreme climates.

The fossils were found in modern-day Australia, in a deposit of material that was once a lake located further south. The creatures died in a frigid environment. It was long believed that the feathers may have enabled some species of dinosaurs to withstand certain environmental conditions. However, dinosaurs with feathers are a rare occurrence in the Southern Hemisphere. Lack of evidence has made it difficult to concur that the dinosaurs in the southern polar circle evolved feathers to keep off the cold.

“Dinosaur skeletons and even the fragile bones of early birds have been found at ancient high-latitudes before. Yet, to date, no directly attributable integumentary remains have been discovered to show that dinosaurs used feathers to survive in extreme polar habitats”, Dr. Benjamin Kear, lead author of the study, explains. “These Australian fossil feathers are therefore highly significant because they came from dinosaurs and small birds that were living in a seasonally very cold environment with months of polar darkness every year”.

The feathers discovered are not the kind of feathers one would find on the birds today. They categorise somewhere in between hair and full-fledged feathers.