Technology advances have brought us a lot of things. For paleontologists, it introduces the ability to detect softer materials (skin, feathers, scales and hair). This has led to some strange new discoveries about long-term extinction animals, showing us that they are even stranger than we think.
A paper published today nature Provides reanalysis of fossils Mirasaura GrauvogeliThis is a reptile 247 million years ago, which is defined by a feather-like structure protruding from the back. The popular concept of these traits is that the attachment is feather, but new research believes that this is not the case. Instead, it is an unusual skin that stretches out like the back of a reptile, the researchers believe. Further research is needed, but the study authors believe that the fan may be a communication tool in the creature.
These structures retain pigment-carrying particles called melanosomes, which are more like birds than reptiles. But the strange thing about these appendages is that they are neither feather nor scales. The researchers reported in the study that they were “obviously corrugated” (similar to cardboard) and were likely to stretch to some extent.
Richard Prum, evolutionary biologist at Yale University, is not involved in the new work. nature. “Mirasola Tell us that feathers are just one of many wonderful things that the creeper has grown out of his skin. ”
For analysis, a team of paleontologists at the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, revisited Mirasola The researchers were discovered in 1939 and acquired by the museum in 2019.
Likewise, paleontologists cannot fully understand MirasolaClose relatives, longisquama insignisit also has a long feather-like structure on the back. At that time, scientists were completely unsure of what to do, partly because Dragon and Trojan The fossils are not well preserved. However, for the new work, the team reconstructed the skeletal anatomy of the two creatures and found it very likely Mirasola and Dragon and Trojan They are all part of the Trepanosaur family, a group of strange reptiles from the Triassic period (200 million to 252 million years ago), sometimes called “monkey lizards.”
These wilts are as strange as they are: long bird-like skulls, bodies like chameleons and an anatomical structure that implies that they live in trees. If the new work is verified, it means that the Drepanosaurs may have an elaborate helical structure that extends from their backs, e.g. Mirasola and Dragon and Trojan.
When studying the past, paleontologists will infer physical characteristics based on empirical evidence. So using such a cautious and complex approach, scientists basically found the transformers of reptiles, even ridiculous. Meanwhile, this “rediscovery” of older fossils has found amazing insights from the past, which is why we look forward to them every time.
