Saturday, July 9, 2016

Reptile scales share evolutionary orgin with hair, feathers

What truly interests me about this article is what would the common ancestor look like?

They, the scientists, all agree that there is a common ancestor that helped the evolution of feathers and hair along. If so, was the development of these characteristics a mutation or an adaptation?
This common ancestor would have been a very interesting thing to look at, was it large or small? Did it look more avian, mammalian, or reptilian? 

Now it seems like common knowledge that lots of dinosaurs had feathers and scales mixed together (i.e. any raptor), but were there any with hair and scales?

It can be agreed on, for the most part, that dinosaurs evolved into birds (the closest living relative to a dinosaur is not a crocodile, it is the common chicken). But then, what is the closest living mammal to the dinosaur?

This article just brings up more questions and with the preservation of fossils and completion of them declining will we ever find out?



1 comment:

  1. yo I was thinking the same thing about hair. The article (and, you know, science) speaks about how birds and reptiles are linked, but it doesn't talk about a mammalian link. I don't know what else to add to this comment. Good work dude.

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