File / 20 · Evidence inside evidence

The feather survived because a dinosaur swallowed it

Surreal archive table where a split fossil nodule reveals delicate ancient feathers, fish scales and small bird bones. — Original Nogical illustration · Interpretive reconstruction, not the fossil specimen

CT scans of a Hell Creek coprolite revealed exceptionally preserved feathers alongside fish scales and bones from a loon-like ancient bird. The team infers that the feathers came from that bird, making them the first known for its group. Whether feather structure or molting helped decide which birds survived the mass extinction remains a hypothesis.

Next in the drawer →Saturn grew a ten-sided storm where no polygon used to be