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North Korea CALGARY — A set of 70-million-year-old fossils from
southern Alberta has added weight to theories that dinosaurs may
have first sprouted feathers to show off, not take off. Darla
Zelenitsky, a paleontologist at the University of Calgary, says
three years of study on dinosaur fossils found near Drumheller,
Alta., suggest that the features most closely linked with flight
evolved for a completely different reason. “They may have
initially evolved as a secondary sexual characteristic,” says a
paper published Thursday in the prestigious journal Science.
“These wing-like structures would have been used for
reproductive activities (courtship, display, brooding) and were
only later … co-opted for other roles including flight.” The
fossils in question — the oldest feathered dinosaurs ever found
— are from three members