'The critical transition from scaled to feathered skin is poorly understood,' researchers wrote in a paper.
The earliest feathered dinosaurs may have evolved their bird-like features while still retaining lizard-like scales on other parts of their body.This theory is based on the discovery of a fossilized psittacosaurus, which had scales similar to those of modern reptiles across most of its body, but feather-specific skin on its tail only, according to a new study in the journal Nature Communications.
Now, fossilized skin samples from a psittacosaurus that lived around 130 million years ago have shown that this species had some areas of scaly skin and other areas with feathers.This fossil was discovered in China and was found to only have had feathers on its tail.
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