Yep, Dinosaurs had Feathers.

By Junelie Velonta
HAPI Scholar

…And they were not just from “flying dinosaurs”, either. (Pterosaurs, while related to dinos, were technically not dinos.) Researchers still have no clear idea as to when dinosaurs started developing feathers, or if all of them had feathers, but dinosaur fossils and other preserved remains found all over the world have contained impressions or traces of feathers.

Now I know what you’re wondering: if not all dinosaurs could fly, then what do they need feathers for? Many things, actually.

Certain fossils of dinosaurs incubating their eggs suggest that they used their feathers to provide warmth to their offspring. As their bodies were positioned a lot like how the birds of today position their bodies while incubating their eggs, researchers have deduced that dinosaur feathers may have been used similarly. Additionally, the said feathers may have been a means to control the temperatures of the dinosaur itself.

Other researchers suggest that it may have been used as a display. Like how a peacock spreads its tail to show colorful patterns, dinosaur feathers may have also been used to attract mates.

Dinosaurs are now extinct (well, save for the descendants of a few species, i.e. modern-day birds). We may never truly know what dinosaur feathers were for. However, as long as we continue to study their remains, we can understand them more and more.

Sources:

Walter J. Bock “Explanatory History of the Origin of Feathers,” American Zoologist 40(4), 478-485, (1 August 2000). https://doi.org/…/0003-1569(2000)040[0478:EHOTOO]2.0.CO;2

Frances C. James and John A. Pourtless IV “Feathered Dragons: Studies on the Transition from Dinosaurs to Birds,” The Auk 122(2), 714-716, (1 April 2005). https://doi.org/10.1642/0004-8038(2005)122[0714:R]2.0.CO;2

Turner, A. H., Makovicky, P. J., and ; Norell, M. A. (2007). Feather quill knobs in The dinosaur velociraptor. Science, 317(5845), 1721–1721. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1145076

Zelenitsky, D. K., Therrien, F., Erickson, G. M., DeBuhr, C. L., Kobayashi, Y., Eberth, D. A., and; Hadfield, F. (2012). Feathered non-avian dinosaurs from North America provide insight into wing origins. Science, 338(6106), 510–514. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1225376

Yang, Z., Jiang, B., McNamara, M.E. et al. Pterosaur integumentary structures with complex feather-like branching. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 24–30 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0728-7