Phys.org has a story about the first polar dinosaurs with feathers. Fossilized dinosaur and bird feathers have been found in what are fine muddy sediments in Australia. The deposit was once the bottom of a shallow lake that was close to the South Pole during the Cretaceous. The feathers date to about 118 million years ago and range from proto-feathers to downy body feathers to wing feathers from primitive birds. The description is in a paper published in the journal Gondwana Research.
"Dinosaur skeletons and even the fragile bones of early birds have been found at ancient high-latitudes before. Yet, to date, no directly attributable integumentary remains have been discovered to show that dinosaurs used feathers to survive in extreme polar habitats," said Dr. Benjamin Kear from Uppsala University in Sweden, a leading author on the study.
"These Australian fossil feathers are therefore highly significant because they came from dinosaurs and small birds that were living in a seasonally very cold environment with months of polar darkness every year."
The fossil feathers were discovered in the Koonwarra Fish Beds Geological Reserve, which is a heritage listed site 145 km southeast of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia.
"Fossil feathers have been known from Koonwarra since the early 1960s, and were recognized as evidence of ancient birds, but have otherwise received very little scientific attention. Our study is thus the first to comprehensively document these remains, which include new specimens that were examined using cutting-edge technologies," said Dr. Thomas Rich of the Melbourne Museum in Australia, who has led numerous expeditions to the Koonwarra locality.
