Instead, it could have belonged to a totally different type of feathered dinosaur. If the fossil feather didn’t belong among those feathers, the study authors argued, it may not have fit on the wing of Archaeopteryx at all. They found that it was shaped differently from those in a sample of modern bird feathers similar to the type Carney’s team identified in 2012. In addition, the study authors drew the feather’s “centerline,” the curve traced out by its bare lower quill and barb-covered shaft. Though the calamus was visible in the 1860s and included in drawings of the fossil at the time, wear on the specimen caused the feature to fade from view. The 2019 study used laser imaging techniques to see a faint chemical “halo” on the fossil corresponding to the feather’s quill, which anatomists call the calamus. But the most shocking analysis came in 2019, when a team led by Thomas Kaye, the director of the U.S.-based Foundation for Scientific Advancement, and University of Hong Kong paleontologist Michael Pittman cast doubt on the feather’s ties to Archaeopteryx. One 2013 study had suggested that the feather was half-black, half-white, while a separate 2014 study argued that the feather’s fossil “pigments” were actually fossilized microbes. Since then, several studies have poked and prodded at the feather’s color and identity. The team also looked at the feather under high-powered microscopes and found fossilized pigments that suggested the feather was black. He found that the feather most plausibly formed part of the upper surface of Archaeopteryx’s left wing, where it would have helped support a primary flight feather. In 2012, Carney-then a graduate student at Brown University- led a study of the fossil feather to discern both its color and particular place on Archaeopteryx’s wing. Carney’s love of Archaeopteryx has since transformed him into something of an expert on the creature. On the fossil’s 150th anniversary, Carney got the fossil tattooed on his arm. In college, he learned 3D modeling expressly to help him reconstruct Archaeopteryx, even incorporating the feather into his final class project: a music video for his rock band. The animal has captivated Carney ever since he was a child. The new study, published in Scientific Reports on the 159th anniversary of the fossil feather’s unveiling, marks Carney’s latest effort to fully understand Archaeopteryx, from how it moved to what it looked like. “It does mean a lot to me to set the record straight.” “This erroneous study got propagated through not just literature but also popular culture,” says Carney, a paleontologist and digital scientist at the University of South Florida. Now, researchers led by National Geographic Explorer Ryan Carney are laying out what they say is the most comprehensive case to date that, yes, the feather belongs to Archaeopteryx. Instead, the question is whether this iconic feather-which provided early evidence for the deep evolutionary history of modern birds-actually belongs to Archaeopteryx. The question isn’t whether Archaeopteryx was feathered: Many of the 13 skeletons found over the years preserve feather imprints. But it’s also among the most controversial-with one 2019 study even suggesting that it didn’t belong to Archaeopteryx at all. Today, the feather that started it all is arguably the most famous fossil of its kind. About the size of a raven, that ancient animal’s mix of bird and dinosaur features showed an example of evolutionary transition, providing support for Charles Darwin’s theories. That 150-million-year-old plume was the first fossil ever tied to Archaeopteryx lithographica-a name now given to a feathered dinosaur found in nearby rocks. Ever since it emerged from a German limestone quarry in 1861, the first known fossilized feather has been an icon of paleontology: at once shockingly similar to modern bird feathers, yet entombed in ancient rock.
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