Dinosaur coprolite: ancient feather may explain bird extinction
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In Montana, David DeMar, Jr. discovered a 66-million-year-old fossilized feather inside a dinosaur’s coprolite, fossilized feces, while searching for fish fossils in 2016.
The find surprised researchers because feathers are rare in the Hell Creek Formation, a region known for dinosaur fossils. Detailed analysis, including CT scans, revealed the coprolite contained multiple feathers, fish scales, and a bone from a now-extinct diving bird called a Hesperornithiformes. Scientists believe the feather came from the bird the dinosaur consumed.
They observed the feather had a structure suited to aquatic life, similar to modern waterfowl, while smaller feathers appeared less effective at insulation. Researchers hypothesize that poorer insulation may have contributed to the extinction of many bird groups following the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, leaving only the Neornithes, the group all living birds belong to, to survive. However, not all experts agree with this interpretation.
Julia Clarke, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, cautioned that drawing conclusions about survival and extinction from incomplete fragments is speculative. Nevertheless, the coprolite offers a rare glimpse into a prehistoric food chain, a “Turducken of the Cretaceous period” as one scientist described it, revealing a dinosaur’s meal of a bird that had itself eaten fish. Jingmai O’Connor noted that further discoveries are needed to confirm whether feather differences played a key role in bird survival.
