Feathers, not just for the birds?
Theropod dinosaurs, thought to be the direct ancestors of birds, sported birdlike feathers. But were they the only feathery dino group? Godefroit
et al.
describe an early neornithischian dinosaur with both early feathers and scales. This seemingly feathery nontheropod dinosaur shows that feathers were not unique to the ancestors of birds and may even have been quite widespread.
Science
, this issue p.
451
A collection of Upper Jurassic fossils from the Baigul, Transbaikal Area of South Siberia, includes numerous specimens of mosses Bryokhutuliinia ingodensis (Srebrodolskaya) Ignatov and Baigulia complanta gen. et sp. nov. Leafy shoots, leaf characters and leaf cell structure are seen in both species. These two genera belong likely to pleurocarpous mosses, but without obvious affinity to any modern family. The third genus, Baiguliella, represented by six small shoots is compared with acrocarpous mosses of the Dicranaceae, Ditrichaceae, Archidiaceae, Meesiaceae. Резюме В коллекции мхов из верхнеюрских отложений Байгула (Забайкалье) богато представлены остатки двух видов, Bryokhutuliinia ingodensis (Srebrodolskaya) Ignatov и Baigulia complanata gen. et sp. nov. Благодаря сохранности материала с фрагментами побегов с листьями хорошо видна структура клеточной сети. Bryokhutuliinia и Baigulia, вероятно, являлись бокоплодными мхами, но родство с каким-либо из современных семейств установить невозможно. Третий род, Baiguliella, представленный шестью мелкими побегами, сравнивается с верхоплодными мхами из семейств Dicranaceae, Ditrichaceae, Archidiaceae и Meesiaceae.
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