Fossil feathers of dinosaurs found near the south pole in Australia

In a recent archaeological discovery, fossil dinosaur feathers were found for the first time near the South Pole. The find hinted at how smaller carnivorous dinosaurs sustained themselves in extremely cold winter seasons in the Antarctic Circle about 118 million years ago. According to palaeontologists, the 10 well-preserved feathers found at a site called Koonwarra, Australia hint at the first official evidence that the long-extinct mammals lived at Earth's poles.

Feathers belonged to Cretaceous period

According to reports, the feathers date back a 118 million years to the early Cretaceous period, when the Australian continent was farther towards the south and merged with Antarctica to form earth's then southern polar landmass. However, the dinosaurs that donned these feathers went through many months of darkened skies and freezing temperatures during the winter season.

Feathers from the early Cretaceous period in modern-day Australia holds the key to understanding that many of the uses animals from that period found for these coverings, from mating to flight but in this case, the feathers may have had a crucial role in keeping dinosaurs warm to survive winter. 

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According to reports, the feathers have not been related with a dinosaur or bird bones. Instead, they were dropped while the creatures were cleaning (preening) themselves. The feathers must have reached the surface of a lake in the Antarctic circle due to strong winds and must have sank to the bottom of the surface alongside getting preserved in fine mud.

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Diverse in nature

Tom Rich and Patricia Rich both worked with an international team to analyse and understand the feathers and found out that the 10 feathers were diverse. The 10 fossils included downy feathers that were used for keeping one warm, a protofeather that belonged to a nonavian dinosaur and a flight feather that had similar characteristics of feathers found on modern-day birds.

Pantheologist Benjamin Kear stated that most of the fossilized feathers were an inch or less in terms of length and probably belonged to enantiornithines, a group of extinct birds that were diverse in the early Cretaceous period. He added that some of the feathers were so small in size indicating that they came from hatchlings.

The protofeather was probably left by a relatively small dinosaur such as a dromaeosaur and a group of carnivores dinosaurs that included the Velociraptor and Deinonychus.

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(With inputs from agencies)