Feather evolution: looking up close and through deep time

• 来源期刊: 科学通报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（9）
• 页码范围: 563-564
• 页数: 2页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

The last two decades have witnessed significant advances in our understanding of the evolution of major avian characteristics [1-6].In particular,the spectacular discoveries of fossilized feathered dinosaurs from China and elsewhere have provided key insights into feather evolution [1,2].These fossils indicate that many non-avialan dinosaurs were feathered animals just like living birds,and when we map the different types of feathers present in various dinosaurs onto their phylogeny,we see a clear evolutionary trend of increasing morphological complexity towards the origin of birds,with even highly specialized asymmetrical flight feathers having evolved before the first birds [2].Even with these significant new fossils and associated data,important issues such as when the first feathers evolved [7] and the microscopic composition of early feathers [8] remain unclear (Fig.1),although two recent studies provide new information on these issues [9,10].