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Unusual fossil skin appendage is not a feather

Although large, elongated protrusions on a 247-million-year-old reptile fossil have some similarities to feathers, they are not feathers.
By
  1. Richard O. Prum

    1. Richard O. Prum is in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and at the Peabody Museum, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA.

Palaeontology brings the astonishing shapes and forms of long-extinct creatures to the attention of scientists. Writing in Nature, Spiekman et al.1 describe evidence for an unusual skin structure in an ancient reptile fossil.

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Nature 643, 1194-1195 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01711-x

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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