66-Million-Year-Old Bird Feather in Dinosaur Coprolite May Explain Avian Survival

Sixty-six million years ago, a predator consumed a small feathered bird, and in doing so, unwittingly preserved one of paleontology's most intimate records of life at the edge of catastrophe. Scientists have recovered bird feathers of extraordinary structural integrity from fossilized dinosaur droppings, offering a rare material witness to the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction boundary. What this coprolite holds may be more than a record of one creature's last meal — it may carry clues to why birds, alone among the dinosaurs, endured the asteroid's aftermath and inherited the skies.