By: Maryann Gao

Recently discovered fossil evidence suggests that an ancient type of flying dinosaurs called Pterosaurs may have had colorful feathers topping their headset.

If Pterosaurs did indeed have feathers, it would link them to a new common ancestor of their species; this would mean that Pterosaurs came about during the early Triassic Period, about 250 million years ago.

Scientists previously thought they appeared much later.

Scientists examined a 113 million year old pterosaur’s head and discovered that the Pterosaur had two types of feathers topping its headset . This discovery was confirmed by paleontologist Aude Cincotta of University College Cork. Some feathers are long and thin, others have a more complicated feather structure. The more complex structures look like the ones today in the modern world.

The Pterosaurs soft tissue is well preserved, allowing the team to examine the colored pigment in the different parts of the body. They are called melanosomes and they come up in feathers and skin. “They look like cigars flattened into plate-like disks” says a paleontologist named Maria McNamara who also has a job at University College Cork.

The shape of melanosomes are linked to different colors rounder ones relate to two different colors yellow or reddish-brown longer shaped ones are linked to darker colors

The fossil’s melanosomes suggests that the Pterosaur is a very attractive animal it also leaves a hint that the feathers aren’t just for warmth, it might be for sending signals and finding females

Pterosaurs are believed to be Earth’s first true vertebrate flyers. Scientists have thought for a long time that Pterosaurs might have feathers but not that they would use those feathers to fly. Something called membranes stretch between the Pterosaurs’ wings (like the things between the wings of a modern bat).

McNamara and a group of other people spotted fuzz on a fossil of a pterosaur. It showed complex patterns similar to that of a modern day wing but some other researchers think that it’s overlapping pycnofibers. The pterosaur turned all that on its head into a fossil of itself. McNamara said “In this fossil, the branches are all the same length. And they extend all down the feather’s shaft. “It’s very clear. We see feathers that are separated, isolated and you can’t say it’s an overlap of structures.”

The fossil of a pterosaur in 2018 had some preserved melanosomes but they were short to avoid. Close to the case Pterosaurs really had feathers says Stephen Brusatte he is a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland he is not part of any new study but many famous dinosaurs where fluffballs.

Some of the Pterosaur’s feathers are very colorful. Study shows that feathers can do many things other than fly be on dinosaurs or on birds it is also another way of communicating with animals.