La ricerca condotta su esemplari di diversa etá del oviraptosauride Similicaudipteryx ha mostrato un diverso sviluppo del piumaggio, a spatola negli individui giovani e a piú classica in quelli piú anziani. Queste forme e sviluppo non sono conosciute nel piumaggio di moderni uccelli.
Exceptional dinosaur fossils show ontogenetic development of early feathers. 2010. Xing X., et al. Nature 464: 1338–1341
Abstract [edit]: We describe an early-juvenile specimen and a late-juvenile specimen, both referable to the oviraptorosaur Similicaudipteryx, recovered from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of western Liaoning, China. The two specimens have strikingly different remiges and rectrices, suggesting that a radical morphological change occurred during feather development, as is the case for modern feathers.
However, both the remiges and the rectrices are proximally ribbon-like in the younger specimen but fully pennaceous in the older specimen, a pattern not known in any modern bird.
In combination with the wide distribution of proximally ribbon-like pennaceous feathers and elongate broad filamentous feathers among extinct theropods, this find suggests that early feathers were developmentally more diverse than modern ones and that some developmental features, and the resultant morphotypes, have been lost in feather evolution.
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