Archaeopteryx is considered as an early bird and a late dinosaur and it existed during the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago. The animal holds importance for paleontologists because of links it provides in transition and may yield important clues about how dinosaurs took to the air.

Published in the journal Nature by paleontologists of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich, a new research has provided intrinsic details of a new specimen with the best preserved plumage found to date. The preservation helped researchers compare different feathered dinosaurs.

The most interesting thing seems to be evolution of feathers for purposes that were not only related to flying, said a team led by Dr. Oliver Rauhut, a paleontologist in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at LMU Munich.

"Comparisons with other feathered predatory dinosaurs indicate that the plumage in the different regions of the body varied widely between these species. That suggests that primordial feathers did not evolve in connection with flight-related roles, but originated in other functional contexts", said Dr. Christian Foth of LMU and the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology in Munich.

The researchers now believe that feathers evolved due to evolutionary pressures related to insulation, display, camouflage and balance first. And when the dinosaurs evolved to fly, the feathers helped them in flying and lading as well. Archaeopteryx had previously been claimed by scientists to be the first bird to fly.

Archaeopteryx was first discovered in the 1860s and they have been a subject of debates in relation to bird evolution since then. They have specially related to flight and feather evolution, explained study co-author Oliver Rauhut, a paleontologist at the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology in Munich.