Deep time is apparently not particular about its filing system.
Sixty-six million years ago, somewhere in what is now Montana, a large tyrannosaur ate a diving bird.
Ordinarily, that would have been the end of the matter.
Instead, the dinosaur left behind a coprolite—a fossilized dropping—which preserved remarkably fine bird feathers. When researchers CT-scanned it, they found more feathers inside, along with fish scales and bird bones.
The feathers matter because they combine surprisingly modern features with more primitive ones, offering another clue to why the lineage leading to today’s birds survived the end-Cretaceous extinction while other birds did not.
The answer is not yet certain.
But after 66 million years, the evidence has finally been examined.
Science leaves no stone unturned.
Occasionally, the stone is not a stone.
#TheModernRaconteur #DailyBrief #UnexpectedEvidence