Publication Date:
2010-10-12
Description:
Penguin feathers are highly modified in form and function, but there have been no fossils to inform their evolution. A giant penguin with feathers was recovered from the late Eocene (~36 million years ago) of Peru. The fossil reveals that key feathering features, including undifferentiated primary wing feathers and broad body contour feather shafts, evolved early in the penguin lineage. Analyses of fossilized color-imparting melanosomes reveal that their dimensions were similar to those of non-penguin avian taxa and that the feathering may have been predominantly gray and reddish-brown. In contrast, the dark black-brown color of extant penguin feathers is generated by large, ellipsoidal melanosomes previously unknown for birds. The nanostructure of penguin feathers was thus modified after earlier macrostructural modifications of feather shape linked to aquatic flight.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Clarke, Julia A -- Ksepka, Daniel T -- Salas-Gismondi, Rodolfo -- Altamirano, Ali J -- Shawkey, Matthew D -- D'Alba, Liliana -- Vinther, Jakob -- DeVries, Thomas J -- Baby, Patrice -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2010 Nov 12;330(6006):954-7. doi: 10.1126/science.1193604. Epub 2010 Sep 30.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. julia_clarke@jsg.utexas.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20929737" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Bone and Bones/anatomy & histology
;
Feathers/*anatomy & histology/ultrastructure
;
*Fossils
;
Melanosomes/ultrastructure
;
Microscopy, Electron, Scanning
;
Peru
;
Phylogeny
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*Pigmentation
;
Spheniscidae/*anatomy & histology/classification
;
Wings, Animal/anatomy & histology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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