The different species of life are created immediately along with the universe. Men, animals, beasts, birds-everything is simultaneously created, because whatever desires the living entities had at the last annihilation are again manifested.

Bhagavad-gita As It Is
by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

httpv://youtu.be/hPLgfGX1I5Y
video: How did feathers evolve? – Carl Zimmer

What Is the Evidence for Feathers Before Flight? | CEH

Posted on May 28, 2013

Birds evolved from dinosaurs; that’s the evolutionary consensus.  Let’s examine the evidence for that scenario.

In “Feathers Before Flight,” Julia Clarke [U of Texas] gathered together the evidence birds evolved from dinosaurs in a Review article for Science Magazine.  To the untrained eye, the confident assertions can seem convincing.  Buried within the text, though, are the bits and pieces of actual fossil evidence used to support the conclusion.  Do they support the evolutionary picture?  Her first paragraph seems to have more gap than link:

Feathers are branched structures consisting of β-keratin—a rigid protein material formed by pleated β sheets—with a hollow central shaft. They are strikingly different from other forms of vertebrate integument such as scales, skin, and hair. Until recently, evolutionary hypotheses envisioned their origin through elongation of broad, flat scales driven by selection for aerial locomotion such as gliding or flapping flight. Over the course of the past two decades, fossil discoveries, especially from northeast China, have revealed that the early precursors of feathers were filament-like rather than expanded scales and that branched pinnate feathers of modern aspect predate the origin of active flight. The revolution in our understanding of feather evolution continues, driven by rapid fossil discoveries and by new information from the study of extant birds.

She implies that the scale-to-feather theory is out.  Somehow, filaments emerged where scales once existed.  Two statements stand out in this quote: that feathers are “strikingly different from any other forms of vertebrate integument,” and that “branched pinnate feathers predate the origin of active flight.”  The first is confirmed by discussions in the new Illustra Media documentary Flight: The Genius of Birds, where an animation of a single feather shows a complex structure complete with a hook-and-groove microstructure that provides an ideal mechanism for flight: lightweight, flexible, and strong.  The second claim, that feathers predate flight, will have to be supported further down in Clarke’s review. Full Article