Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1942/37293
Title: Pterosaur melanosomes support signalling functions for early feathers
Authors: Cincotta, Aude
Nicolai, Michael
Nascimento Campos, Hebert Bruno
McNamara, Maria
D'Alba, Liliana
Shawkey, Matthew D.
Kischlat, Edio-Ernst
Yans, Johan
CARLEER, Robert 
Escuillie, Francois
Godefroit, Pascal
Issue Date: 2022
Publisher: NATURE PORTFOLIO
Source: Nature, 604 (7907) , p. 684 -688
Abstract: Remarkably well-preserved soft tissues in Mesozoic fossils have yielded substantial insights into the evolution of feathers(1). New evidence of branched feathers in pterosaurs suggests that feathers originated in the avemetatarsalian ancestor of pterosaurs and dinosaurs in the Early Triassic(2), but the homology of these pterosaur structures with feathers is controversial(3,4). Reports of pterosaur feathers with homogeneous ovoid melanosome geometries(2,5) suggest that they exhibited limited variation in colour, supporting hypotheses that early feathers functioned primarily in thermoregulation(6). Here we report the presence of diverse melanosome geometries in the skin and simple and branched feathers of a tapejarid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous found in Brazil. The melanosomes form distinct populations in different feather types and the skin, a feature previously known only in theropod dinosaurs, including birds. These tissue-specific melanosome geometries in pterosaurs indicate that manipulation of feather colour-and thus functions of feathers in visual communication-has deep evolutionary origins. These features show that genetic regulation of melanosome chemistry and shape(7-9) was active early in feather evolution.
Notes: Cincotta, A (corresponding author), Royal Belgian Inst Nat Sci, Directorate Earth & Hist Life, Brussels, Belgium.; Cincotta, A (corresponding author), Univ Namur, Inst Life Earth & Environm, Namur, Belgium.; Cincotta, A; McNamara, M (corresponding author), Univ Coll Cork, Sch Biol Earth & Environm Sci, Cork, Ireland.; Cincotta, A; McNamara, M (corresponding author), Univ Coll Cork, Environm Res Inst, Cork, Ireland.
acincotta@naturalsciences.be; maria.mcnamara@ucc.ie
Keywords: Animals;Pigmentation;Biological Evolution;Dinosaurs;Feathers;Fossils;Melanosomes
Document URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1942/37293
ISSN: 0028-0836
e-ISSN: 1476-4687
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04622-3
ISI #: WOS:000784934100004
Rights: The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Category: A1
Type: Journal Contribution
Validations: ecoom 2023
Appears in Collections:Research publications

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