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Re: help: reptile scale to bird feathers



At 12:28 30/05/97 -0700, you wrote:
>
>Manfred Krautter <manfred.krautter@po.uni-stuttgart.de> asks:
>
>> can anybody give me some hints how reptile scales developed into feathers
>
I think it is obvious that since feathers end in quills that birds evolved
from porcupines who fell out of trees. The better ones at gliding, with 
hairier quills were preferentially selected as birds. That is why porcupines 
are so slow at climbing trees because the fast ones fell more often, and 
probably why birds still nest in trees.

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