When an asteroid hit the Earth, tossing up dust into the sky, why did some winged creatures survive while others fell by the wayside? A pair of new studies, based in part on the discovery of ancient bird feathers preserved in amber, may have an answer.
Feathers from a baby bird that lived during the Cretaceous period, preserved in amber. Many birds survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but not all. Some went extinct along with the non-avian dinosaurs, and scientists aren’t sure why. When an asteroid hit the Earth, tossing up dust into the sky, why did some winged creatures survive while others fell by the wayside?preserved in amber, suggest that a major factor lies in how the different bird groups molted.
The amber from Burma appeared to contain feathers related to simultaneous molting – the 99-million-year-old specimens were all at about the same stage of development and had apparently detached as a group. The discovery partially confirmed a suspicion held by scientists, that ancient birds molted less frequently than their modern-day counterparts. The amber also presented a mystery.
. “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, they didn’t have the resources to meet them.”The amber specimen may also help to explain why O’Connor and other scientists so rarely find evidence of molting in fossils. Could rapid molting be to blame?
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