Discover how dinosaurs existed with the rigors of ancient Gondwana

Gondwana is a huge ancient continent made up of what is today South America, Australia, Antarctica, Madagascar and India . Life for the dinosaurs to survive in this land is not easy though this supercontinent is not as icy hell as today, but long winters will need the dinosaurs to adapt themselves to stay warm. .

A team of scientists from Slovakia, Sweden, Australia and the United States analyzed fossils of a series of feathers from dinosaurs and birds that once lived in the area to find answers.

While hints of dinosaurs with sets of feathers have appeared in fossils, examples from the Northern Hemisphere, for example, represent a range of coatings that can help wildlife. adjust the temperature, hide and sometimes even glide in relatively warm climates.

Scientists have determined how dinosaurs evolved to survive in extreme climates.

"So far, no direct traces have been found that the dinosaurs used feathers to survive in extremely harsh environments," said Benjamin Kear, a paleontologist from the University. Uppsala in Sweden said.

That doesn't mean we haven't found a feather fossil in the southern hemisphere . A mining site in the southern state of Victoria has given a few notable examples over the decades. However, researchers have never looked closely until now.

" Fossilized feathers have been known in Koonwarra since the early 1960s and are recognized as evidence of ancient birds, but it received very little scientific attention. Therefore, our study is the first comprehensive study of these remains, including new specimens tested by the most advanced technologies , ' said Thomas Rich of the Melbourne Museum in Australia.

A total of ten fossil samples were included in the study, all dating around 118 million years, providing solid evidence of wing feathers from ancient birds, dinosaurs and partially decomposed feathers.

The technology used includes special types of microscopes and advanced spectroscopy, allowing the team to obtain an impressive level of detail from the remains of well preserved, informative fossils. about the anatomy of and in some cases color.

Some relatively advanced feathers have thorns similar to modern feathers that help them interlock to fly and protect animals against external factors.

"Feathers will be used to insulate. The discovery of primary feathers at Koonwarra suggests that feathered coats may have helped little dinosaurs stay warm in the polar polar habitat. '' said lead author Martin Kundrát, of Pavol Jozef Safarik University in Slovakia.

To understand the conditions in which these dinosaurs live, we need to rewind the clock for several hundred million years, when the familiar map of the Earth will look quite different.

The southern lands today are Antarctica, Australia, South America and Africa, along with India and Arab, all combined in a huge supercontinent called Gondwana , located more or less directly. focus on the Antarctic region of the Earth.

The world climate was much warmer then, and Gondwana was not a winter country all year round. Instead, it is much more moderate, with a lush ecosystem full of plants and animals.

Although the ice is not constantly frozen, the poles still experience long periods of sunlight with summer and darkness in winter. Therefore, anything living in such harsh conditions still has to deal with a prolonged cold sunset.

Therefore, there is hard evidence of insulating feathers to help researchers fill in the missing pieces.

The team also found dense fossil pigmentation cells that show that dark colors can help absorb heat, otherwise it also helps to camouflage or communicate during low light months among dinosaurs.

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