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The extravagant tail feathers of a dinosaur age bird may have helped it gain companions, but the fluffy rump was also literally a drag during flight, a study of well-preserved fossil finds .
The bird’s tail is really “weird,” the researchers said; he had two long plume feathers that made up over 150% of his body length. At the base of the tail, a stiff fan of short feathers likely aided the bird in flight, the researchers said.
“We have never seen this combination of different types of tail feathers before in a fossil bird “, co-researcher of the Jingmai O’Connor study, paleontologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, said in a press release.
Related: Photos: A bird from the dinosaur era sported ribbon-shaped feathers
The 120-million-year-old fossil was unearthed in Jehol Biota in northeast China, an area well known for its early days Cretaceous period fossils, which have been preserved in volcanic sediments. The researchers named the bird Yuanchuavis Kompsosoura, after the Mandarin word “yuanchu”, which refers to a Chinese mythological bird, and “notice”, the Latin word for bird. The name of the species means “elegant tail” in Greek.
The unique combination of a short-tailed fan and two long feathers, known as the pintail, is seen in some modern birds, such as souimangas and quetzals. However, scientists have never found a fossil bird or non-avian dinosaur with this combination, O’Connor said.
Y. kompsosoura is a member of the Enantiorniths, an ancient group of birds that became extinct with the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Other enantiorniths had either plumes or tail fans, but not both, said the study’s first author, Min Wang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “The tail fan is aerodynamically functional, while the central elongated paired plumes are used for display, which together reflect the interplay between natural and sexual selection,” Wang said in the release.
Indeed, the toothed blue jay Y. kompsosoura might have flown well, but his sexy tail plumes would have been a literal drag and probably even attracted unwanted attention from predators.
“Scientists call a trait like a fancy big tail an ‘honest signal’ because it is damaging, so if an animal with it is able to survive with this handicap it is a sign that it is really in good shape,” O’Connor said. “A female bird would look at a male with awkward, bulky tail feathers and think, ‘Dang, if he’s able to survive even with such a ridiculous tail, he must have some really good genes.'”
Usually, birds with flaming tail feathers do not live in places that require dexterous flight. “Birds that live in harsher environments that need to be able to fly very well, like seabirds in their open environment, tend to have short tails,” O’Connor said. “Birds with elaborate tails that are less specialized for flight tend to live in dense, resource-rich environments, such as forests.”
What’s more, Y. kompsosouraThe tail of s suggests that the males were probably absent sires. Often, predators are more likely to notice birds with showy feathers, so it’s usually the duller-colored female bird that looks after the young, O’Connor noted. Plus, it takes a lot of work to take care of the long feathers, so these males probably couldn’t invest resources in rearing the chicks either.
The study was published online Thursday (September 16) in the journal Current biology.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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