Illustration of juvenile Enantiornithine – SWNS(By Mark Waghorn, SWNS)Bird feathers from 99 million years ago not only shows that modern birds are descended from dinosaurs but might also point to why some of their ancestors died out.The feathers, found preserved in amber in Myanmar, show how molting was the key to some early extinctions.It represents the first definitive fossil example of juvenile molting in birds, the only type of dinosaurs to survive the asteroid strike.The bird, named Enantiornithine, had to keep itself warm while undergoing rapid shedding, a factor in the species’ ultimate doom, say scientists.All non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out in the asteroid strike that hit the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago.”Enantiornithines were the most diverse group of birds in the Cretaceous, but they went extinct along with all the other non-avian dinosaurs,” explained Professor Jingmai O’Connor of The Field Museum Chicago, who published the research in the journals Cretaceous Research and Communications Biology.”When the asteroid hit, global temperatures would have plummeted and resources would have become scarce, so not only would these birds have even higher energy demands to stay warm, but they didn’t have the resources to meet them.”The present consensus is that birds are a group of theropod dinosaurs that originated during the Mesozoic Era from 252 to 66 million years ago.Feathers are made of a protein called keratin, the same material as our fingernails and hair and molting happens as they can’t be repaired.Feathers from a baby bird that lived 99 million years ago – SWNS”Molting is fundamentally such an important process to birds, because feathers are involved in so many different functions,” said Prof. O’Connor.”We want to know, how did this process evolve? How How The The latter are born with feathers and are fairly self-sufficient.Molting takes a lot of energy, and losing a lot of feathers at once can make it hard for a bird to keep itself warm. Pre All Sim It The I I
Bird feathers from 99 million years ago( by Mark Waghorn, SWNS ) not only demonstrate that modern birds are descended from dinosaurs, but they may also shed light on the reasons why some of their ancestors perished. The feathers, which were discovered in Myanmar preserved in amber, demonstrate how some earlier extinctions were caused by molting. The second is represented by it.
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