Fossilized feather in dinosaur coprolite offers clues to bird survival

Sixty-six million years ago, a tyrannosaur swallowed a bird — and in doing so, accidentally preserved one of the most intimate records of life on the eve of catastrophe. Scientists have recovered a feather locked inside fossilized dinosaur feces, a discovery that bridges predator and prey, extinction and survival, in a single improbable artifact. The find invites us to reconsider not only what birds are, but why they alone among the dinosaurs endured to inherit a transformed world.