Ancient fossilized feces yields remarkably preserved feather
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Palaeontologists in Montana discovered a well-preserved feather inside a 66-million-year-old fossilized dinosaur dropping, called a coprolite.
David DeMar found the unusual nodule while searching for fish fossils at the Hell Creek Formation, a site famous for dinosaur remains. Micro-CT scans revealed the coprolite held not only the feather, but also fish scales and leg bones from a small bird, suggesting a complex food web interaction where one dinosaur consumed a bird that had recently eaten fish.
Researchers believe the feather belonged to a hesperornithiform, an extinct aquatic bird closely related to modern birds. The discovery is notable because it preserves the feather in three dimensions, unlike most feather fossils which are just impressions. Jingmai O'Connor of the Field Museum in Chicago suggests the find opens a new avenue for studying fossilized soft tissues, as coprolites could contain previously undiscovered remains.
The team hypothesizes that differences in plumage, specifically, the presence of insulating body feathers and advanced wing feathers, may have helped modern birds survive the mass extinction event that wiped out most other dinosaur and bird groups. Steven Salisbury of the University of Queensland called the idea “intriguing”, noting that understanding why some species survive extinctions remains a major challenge. O’Connor is now encouraging other scientists to scan their coprolite collections for similar finds.
