The most diverse, amber-preserved, fossilized feather collection ever found is shedding new insight into the evolution of dinosaur and bird feathers.The feathers, 11 in total, are believed to be from the Late Cretaceous period, which spanned 99 million to 66 million years ago.It’s the first discovery of three-dimensional dinosaur feathers, and they offer the most comprehensive snapshot of the structure, colour and shape of early feathers.
The Alberta amber collection represents four distinct stages of feather evolution, including primitive single-filament protofeathers – fuzz, really, which scientists believe belonged to non-flying dinosaurs such as mighty tyrannosaurids – and complex structures with side branches that resemble feathers of modern diving birds.
The fossils also reveal that feathers from Late Cretaceous were not uniform in colour: Some were light, some dark.
(article from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/prairies/albertas-dinosaur-feathers-have-paleontologists-all-atwitter/article2167320/ )
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