A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber

Xing, Lida; McKellar, Ryan C.; Xu, Xing; Li, Gang; Bai, Ming; Persons, W. Scott; Miyashita, Tetsuto; Benton, Michael J.; Zhang, Jianping; Wolfe, Alexander P.; Yi, Qiru; Tseng, Kuo-Wei; Hao, Ran; Currie, Philip J.

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.008

Cited by 97 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(1 reference statement)

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“…Differences in the mechanism between purely aquatic organisms as compared to terrestrial and amphibian animals are not surprising, as thermoregulation is more important on land than in the water (Aspengren, Sköld, & Wallin, 2009;Fujii, 2000;Nilsson Sköld et al, 2013). Moreover, the appearance in the skin of adaptive isolation systems (fur and feathers), which both minimized temperature loss and the skin's exposure to UV damage, was a feature in the process of natural selection for endothermy common to both the mammalian lineage and the stem archosaurs, and non-avian theropod dinosaurs of the avian lineage (Lovegrove, 2016;Xing et al, 2016).…”

Section: Various Types Of Skin Pigment Cells With Distinct Characterimentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing the light to change colour: An evolutionary perspective on the role of melanopsin in neuroendocrine circuits regulating light‐mediated skin pigmentation

Bertolesi

McFarlane

2018

Pigment Cell Melanoma Res

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Summary Melanopsin photopigments, Opn4x and Opn4m, were evolutionary selected to “see the light” in systems that regulate skin colour change. In this review, we analyse the roles of melanopsins, and how critical evolutionary developments, including the requirement for thermoregulation and ultraviolet protection, the emergence of a background adaptation mechanism in land‐dwelling amphibian ancestors and the loss of a photosensitive pineal gland in mammals, may have helped sculpt the mechanisms that regulate light‐controlled skin pigmentation. These mechanisms include melanopsin in skin pigment cells directly inducing skin darkening for thermoregulation/ultraviolet protection; melanopsin‐expressing eye cells controlling neuroendocrine circuits to mediate background adaptation in amphibians in response to surface‐reflected light; and pineal gland secretion of melatonin phased to environmental illuminance to regulate circadian and seasonal variation in skin colour, a process initiated by melanopsin‐expressing eye cells in mammals, and by as yet unknown non‐visual opsins in the pineal gland of non‐mammals.

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Section: Various Types Of Skin Pigment Cells With Distinct Characterimentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing the light to change colour: An evolutionary perspective on the role of melanopsin in neuroendocrine circuits regulating light‐mediated skin pigmentation

Bertolesi

McFarlane

2018

Pigment Cell Melanoma Res

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“…Further emphasizing this point is an indeterminate coelurosaurian tail segment preserved in amber with exceptional 3D preservation of the associated feathers (Xing et al . ). The authors stated that ‘none of the observed osteological features preclude a compsognathid affinity’.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The possibility of extinct, open‐vaned feathers possessing barbules is in congruence with the indeterminate coelurosaurian tail preserved in amber that possesses feathers with undifferentiated barbules which are also weakly pennaceous and open‐vaned (Xing et al . ). Thus, Serikornis , and other paravians like Anchiornis , may have lacked functional barbicels/differentiated barbules, resulting in an open vane, rather than lacking barbules entirely.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Additional information on the primitive contour and wing feathering of paravian dinosaurs

Saitta

Gelernter²,

Vinther

2017

Palaeontology

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Identifying feather morphology in extinct dinosaurs is challenging due to dense overlapping of filaments within fossilized plumage and the fact that some extinct feather morphologies are unlike those of extant birds or those predicted from an ‘evo‐devo’ model of feather evolution. Here, we compare a range of dinosaur taxa with preserved integumentary appendages using high‐resolution photographs to better understand fossil feather morphology and gain insight into their function and evolution. A specimen of the basal paravian Anchiornis possesses contour feathers disarticulated from the plumage, revealing a novel feather type: a ‘shaggy’, open‐vaned, bifurcated feather with long barbs attached to a short rachis, which is much simpler than the contour feathers of most extant birds. In contrast, it is likely that the contour feathers of Sinosauropteryx were simpler than those seen in Anchiornis; a ‘tuft’ morphology of multiple barbs connected at their bases (e.g. via a shared follicle), but lacking a rachis, is tentatively inferred. However, conclusive morphological descriptions await the discovery of isolated Sinosauropteryx contour feathers. Paravian wing feathers also show potentially plesiomorphic traits. Comparison with Confuciusornis suggests that Anchiornis wing feathers were at least partially open‐vaned. Combined with the interpretation of Anchiornis contour feathers, this suggests that differentiated barbicels are relatively derived compared to pennaceous feathers and the appearance of wings. ‘Shaggy’ contour feathers probably influenced thermoregulatory and water repellence abilities, and, in combination with open‐vaned wing feathers, would have decreased aerodynamic efficiency. Simplified, open‐vaned wing feathers were also observed on the oviraptorosaur Caudipteryx, consistent with, but not necessarily diagnostic of, its suggested flightlessness. Taken together, these observations have broad implications for how we depict a wide variety of dinosaurs and how we view the function and evolution of feathers.

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“…Since then, new feathered dinosaur specimens and species from China have been unearthed every year and at an accelerating pace (Xu 2006). Recently, such Chinese discoveries have been joined by other dinosaur skeletons with associated feathers from Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada (Zelenitsky et al 2012;Van Der Reest et al 2016), and from Rygol Quarry in Bavaria, Germany (Rauhut et al 2012), along with amber specimens from both Alberta (McKellar et al 2011) and Myanmar (Xing et al 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Feather evolution exemplifies sexually selected bridges across the adaptive landscape

Persons

Currie

2019

Evolution

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Over the last two decades, paleontologists have pieced together the early evolutionary history of feathers. Simple hair‐like feathers served as insulating pelage, but the first feathers with complex branching structures and a plainer form evolved for the purpose of sexual display. The evolution of these complex display feathers was essential to the later evolution of flight. Feathers illustrate how sexual selection can generate complex novel phenotypes, which are then available for natural selection to modify and direct toward novel functions. In the longstanding metaphor of the adaptive landscape, sexual selection is a means by which lineages resting on one adaptive peak may gradually bridge a gap to another peak, without the landscape itself being first altered by environmental changes.

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A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber

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Cited by 97 publications

References 25 publications

Seeing the light to change colour: An evolutionary perspective on the role of melanopsin in neuroendocrine circuits regulating light‐mediated skin pigmentation

Seeing the light to change colour: An evolutionary perspective on the role of melanopsin in neuroendocrine circuits regulating light‐mediated skin pigmentation

Additional information on the primitive contour and wing feathering of paravian dinosaurs

Feather evolution exemplifies sexually selected bridges across the adaptive landscape

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