Adorable Triassic Reptile Used its Freaky Back Fin to Communicate

Technological developments have brought us many things. For excavation scientists, the ability to investigate the most softened materials – drain, feathers, standards, and hair – were presented on fossilized creatures. This results in some strange new results about the long -term animals, which indicates that they are more strange than we imagined.

A paper published today in nature Provides a re -analysis from a fossa Miraasura GrauvogeliReptiles of 247 million years old, a distinctive feature is a feather -like structure that comes out of its back. The famous concept of these features is that the annexes were feathers, but the new study says this is not the case. Instead, it is an unusual type of skin that extends like a fan of reptiles. More research is needed, but study authors believe that this fan was likely to be a communication tool between creatures.

These structures have maintained molecules that carry pigment, which is called mlan, which resembles birds more than reptiles. But the strange thing about these appendices is that they were neither feathers nor scales. They are “clearly wavy” – like cardboard – and they are likely to be somewhat flexible, according to study researchers.

“This guide reveals that vertebrate skin has more sophisticated evolutionary possibilities than he might imagine,” wrote Richard Brom, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University who did not participate in the new work. nature. “Miraasura He teaches us that the feather is only one of the many great things that developed reptiles to grow from its skin. “

For analysis, a team of excavation scientists at the Stuttgart Museum of Natural History, Germany, reconsidated the ancient excavations Miraasura In 1939, he discovered the museum in 2019. The researchers were in the dark about what Al -Ahfouri was – in fact, the team was behind the new study that defined the creature for the first time.

Likewise, excavation scientists were unable MiraasuraNear relative, Longisquama IsignisWhich also appeared long feathers -like structures on their back. At that time, scientists were not sure of what to do at all, partly because Longisquama The fossils are not well preserved. However, for the new work, the team has rebuilt the structural anatomy of creatures, and you find that it is very likely that Miraasura and Longisquama Both were part of the Drepanosaur family, a strange group of reptiles of the Trias era (between 201 million and 252 million years), sometimes referred to as “the monkey lizards”.

These are strange trains as they come: long birds that resemble birds, bodies such as chameleons, and anatomy indicating that they lived in trees. If the new work is verified, this means that Drepanosaurses may have detailed spiral structures that span their appearance, such as Miraasura and Longisquama.

When studying the past, fossil scientists use their best rule to infer material features based on experimental evidence. Therefore, by using these delicate and advanced methods, scientists mainly found a copy of reptiles of transformers. At the same time, such “re -discovering” old fossils reveals amazing visions of the past – that is why we look forward to them every time.