Title | Mosaic evolution in an asymmetrically feathered troodontid dinosaur with transitional features |
Authors | Xu, Xing Currie, Philip Pittman, Michael Xing, Lida Meng, Qingjin Lu, Junchang Hu, Dongyu Yu, Congyu |
Affiliation | Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Vertebrate Paleontol & Paleoanthropol, Key Lab Vertebrate Evolut & Human Origins, Beijing 100044, Peoples R China. Univ Alberta, Dept Biol Sci, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9, Canada. Univ Hong Kong, Dept Earth Sci, Vertebrate Palaeontol Lab, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Peoples R China. China Univ Geosci, Sch Earth Sci & Resources, Beijing 100083, Peoples R China. Beijing Museum Nat Hist, Beijing 100050, Peoples R China. Chinese Acad Geol Sci, Inst Geol, Beijing 100037, Peoples R China. Shenyang Normal Univ, Paleontol Inst, Shenyang 110034, Peoples R China. Shenyang Normal Univ, Key Lab Evolut Life Northeast Asia, Minist Land & Resources, Shenyang 110034, Peoples R China. Peking Univ, Coll Life Sci, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China. |
Keywords | THEROPOD DINOSAUR YIXIAN FORMATION CHINA BIRDS ARCHAEOPTERYX FLIGHT ORIGIN WINGS MICRORAPTOR ARCHOSAURS |
Issue Date | 2017 |
Publisher | NATURE COMMUNICATIONS |
Citation | NATURE COMMUNICATIONS.2017,8. |
Abstract | Asymmetrical feathers have been associated with flight capability but are also found in species that do not fly, and their appearance was a major event in feather evolution. Among non-avialan theropods, they are only known in microraptorine dromaeosaurids. Here we report a new troodontid, Jianianhualong tengi gen. et sp. nov., from the Lower Cretaceous Jehol Group of China, that has anatomical features that are transitional between long-armed basal troodontids and derived short-armed ones, shedding new light on troodontid character evolution. It indicates that troodontid feathering is similar to Archaeopteryx in having large arm and leg feathers as well as frond-like tail feathering, confirming that these feathering characteristics were widely present among basal paravians. Most significantly, the taxon has the earliest known asymmetrical troodontid feathers, suggesting that feather asymmetry was ancestral to Paraves. This taxon also displays a mosaic distribution of characters like Sinusonasus, another troodontid with transitional anatomical features. |
URI | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11897/473520 |
ISSN | 2041-1723 |
DOI | 10.1038/ncomms14972 |
Indexed | SCI(E) |
Appears in Collections: | 生命科学学院 |