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Ryan Carney and his colleagues at Brown University released a scientific paper on the feathers of the Archaeopteryx today. Carney celebrated by having an Archaeopteryx feather tattooed on his arm, thereby gaining himself an entry in Carl Zimmer’s science tattoo collection. But what about the Archaeopteryx?
The first fossil of Archaeopteryx was a single feather–the one that Carney has turned into a tattoo. It was discovered in 1861 in a limestone quarry near the town of Solnhofen and brought to Hermann von Meyer, one of Germany’s leading paleontologists at the time. As scientists would later determine, this exceptional feather was 145 million years old. Despite its antiquity, the feather looked much like the feathers on the wings of living birds.
The fossil was so extraordinary that Von Meyer wondered if some forger had etched it. After all, Solnhofen limestone was prized for making finely detailed lithographic prints. But then von Meyer compared the slab and the counterslab and found them to be identical.
Now 150 years later, we know a lot more about the Archaeopteryx and how it fits in the evolution of dinosaurs to birds. Read how many of these discoveries came about at The Loom. Link
Face it, most of us would sooner throw away bird feathers before we ever considered using them for an art project. Fortunately, artist Ian Davey is not like the rest of us and he has taken to using swan feathers as canvases for his lovely paintings. The results are simply stunning, as you can see by exploring the gallery at the link.
While some cities are buried under snow, a road in Cambridgeshire only looked that way as it was covered in duck feathers. A truck carrying the feathers caught fire and spilled its load on the A14.
A ruptured diesel tank caused the fire in the lorry, which was carrying the duck feathers on the A14 near Hemingford Grey.
The westbound carriageway of the road was shut after being covered in the white feathers and a rolling roadblock was in place eastbound.
Diversions are in place but motorists are advised to avoid the area.
The truck was destroyed, and the feathers went everywhere. Link (with video) -via Arbroath
A variety of birds may use their crests and protruberant feathers to feel their surroundings. Studies were conducted on auklets, who breed in dark, rocky crevices.
The researchers placed individual auklets into a dark experimental maze, designed to resemble a natural crevice, and recorded how often they bumped into things. Both crested and whiskered auklets bumped their heads 2.5 times more often if their feathers on their heads had been artificially flattened.
When the ornithologists then compared the lifestyles of birds with their feather patterns, they found that “Birds that live in complex, cluttered habitats and are active at night tend to have a greater probability to express such facial feathers.”
Cat owners will not be surprised by this news, since whiskers serve an equivalent purpose.
Coincidentally, this week National Geographic is reporting the existence of a tentacled snake whose head appendages are used to find prey in murky lakes at night.
Link.
