Feathers are for the dinosaurs, and for their modern descendants, the birds. But feathers aren’t the only adornments that ancient animals developed. In fact, a new study suggests that a small reptile from the Middle Triassic sported something similar to feathers, millions of years before the appearance of feathers themselves.
Published in Nature, the study introduces Mirasaura grauvogeli, or “Grauvogel’s Wonder Reptile,” as a new species. Tracing back to around 247 million years ago, this reptile boasted a spectacular crest along its back, composed of solid, feather-shaped structures.
“The fact that we have discovered such complex skin appendages in such an ancient group of reptiles sheds a new light on their evolution. Mirasaura is even older than the dinosaurs and not closely related to them,” said Stephan Spiekman, a study author and a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany, in a press release. “Mirasaura provides the first direct evidence that such structures actually did form early on in reptile evolution.”
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Function of Feathers for Dinosaurs and Reptiles
The holotype of Mirasaura (State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, Germany) showing the bird-like skull and the crest along the back. (Image Credit: Stephan Spiekman)
Of course, feathers served several functions for the dinosaurs, and serve several functions for birds today, acting as a tool for sensation, display, and deterrence of foes — even for flight and insulation. But dinosaurs and birds weren’t the only animals that sprouted structures from their skin to fulfill those purposes.
Identified from a series of over 80 fossils from France, Mirasaura was a small, barrel-shaped reptile with a long body and a long tail, which lived in the forests of the Middle Triassic. There, the reptile likely spent its time in the trees, clinging to tree branches and eating the tiny, tree-dwelling insects that hid beneath the bark.
But what was most interesting about the species was its crest, a fan of flat, overlapping appendages, each with a feather-like shape and spine. According to the authors of the new study, Mirasaura probably used these appendages to show off to one another, making them an early alternative to the flashy display feathers of dinosaurs and birds.
“Mirasaura developed an alternative to feathers very early in Earth’s history,” said Rainer Schoch, another study author and paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History, in the release, “which we did not expect.”
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The Significance of Reptile Feathers
A fossil from the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, Germany, fossil preserving a large crest of Mirasaura. (Image Credit: Stephan Spiekman)
According to the study authors, Mirasaura’s complex skin structures were likely not real feathers and were likely not related to real feathers at all. Indeed, while Mirasaura’s feather-shaped appendages were solid blades, true feathers are branching structures, which split off into fine barbs. This distinction means that it is likely that Mirasaura’s complex skin structures evolved independently from those in dinosaurs and birds.
“Mirasaura grauvogeli shows us how surprising evolution can be and what potential it holds,” Schoch added in the release. “It repeatedly produces similar structures that are completely independent of each other.”
The study authors say that the fossils of Mirasaura were found in the 1930s, when Louis Grauvogel, a French fossil collector, started sifting through the sediment of the Grès à Voltzia Formation in Alsace, France. Though his collection from the site primarily consisted of plants and invertebrates, such as insects, it also contained two well-preserved skeletons and 80 well-preserved crest specimens of Mirasaura, which were identified as a new species when the collection was transferred to the State Museum of Natural History in 2019.
The paleontologists say that they intend to study the site where the fossils were found and to analyze the fossils further to piece together more of Mirasaura’s biology, ecology, and environment. For now, though, they stress that the species encourages us to rethink our understanding of reptile evolution, suggesting that early reptiles sprouted complex skin structures, too, long before the feathers of the dinosaurs and birds.
Read More: Do We Still Have Any Species Today That Are Descendants of Dinosaurs?
Article Sources
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Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
