Modern and early birds, plus feathered dinosaurs, have all sported feathers made of the same material, according to a new study.
The researchers investigated 125-million-year-old feathers from a dinosaur and an early bird to identify the proteins present. Both lived in China during the Early Cretaceous Period, about 25 million years after the first birds evolved.
Established science holds that they should have found spiral-shaped alpha proteins, which set ancient feathers apart from modern ones.
