Did Dinosaurs Have Feathers?

 
An article on the National Geographic website addresses an issue in the evolution of birds ["Feathered" Dinosaur Was Bald, Not Bird Ancestor, Controversial Study Says].

The article deals with a recent report by a group at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa; University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill); and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing. The paper was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The authors claim that the "feathers" seen on recent dinosaur fossils are not feathers at all but collagen fibers. This is a minority opinion and the reason why I mention the article is to point out how good science writing can put things in context. Here's an example,

Lingham-Soliar and colleagues' results support the arguments of a small but highly vocal group of scientists who say there's no evidence of dinosaurs ever having feathers.

"The existence of protofeathers in these dinosaurs was considered critical evidence that birds were derived from dinosaurs," said study co-author Alan Feduccia, a bird evolution expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"What we have shown is that there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that protofeathers existed in dinosaurs, period."

But the majority of scientists in the field are unconvinced.

The article then goes on to quote from a number of scientists who disagree with the findings of the South African group.

"These people have been flogging the same horse for a long time," said Kevin Padian, curator of the University of California Museum of Paleontology.

"It is appalling that Proceedings B chose to publish this nonsense."

We need more of this kind of reporting.

Lingham-Soliar, T., Feduccia, A., and Wang, X. (2007) A new Chinese specimen indicates that ‘protofeathers’ in the Early Cretaceous theropod dinosaur Sinosauropteryx are degraded collagen fibres. Proc. Roy. Soc. B: published online Wednesday, May 23, 2007