Author: Brian Switek / Source: Science News for Students
Pterosaurs were not dinosaurs. These prehistoric flying reptiles belonged to a family all their own.
But scientists now report that pterosaurs (TAIR-oh-sors) and dinosaurs shared one important trait. Both had protofeathers.The dinosaurs in Jurassic World may be as smooth as any modern-day lizard, but real dinos would have looked much different. Many were covered in protofeathers. These are the forerunners of the feathers found on birds today.
Paleontologists had long known that pterosaurs were as fuzzy as kittens. In 1831, paleontologist Georg August Goldfuss wrote about a pterosaur with fibers on its body. He likened them to hair. Experts called them pycnofibers [PICK-no-fy-burs] and thought they differed from protofeathers.
Michael Benton is a paleontologist at the University of Bristol in England. He and his colleagues have just examined fossils from two pterosaurs found in the Daohugou region of northern China. Both were small, about the size of a brown bat. They had lived some 165…
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