Despite how we usually depict them, the hilarious truth is that many dinosaurs who once roamed our Earth, did so with a fabulous display of feathers.

It seems far-fetched, but anyone who has spent time with a cassowary or an emu will tell you that these feathered friends can seem, at times, not too dissimilar to the ancient creatures that walked our planet long before we did.

And the discovery, over thirty years ago, that dinosaurs had feathers helped researchers to understand that the birds that live alongside us even now, are actually the long-lost, distant relatives of dinosaurs.

It was this fact that led to a team of researchers from the UK’s Natural History Museum to conduct a thorough review into the evolution of feathers, to learn how these insulating yet waterproof, strong but lightweight, flexible keratin-based structures came to link the dinosaurs with the birds we all know and love.

Recently published in the academic journal Biology Letters, the study explains that there is still significant debate amongst palaeontologists about the evolution of feathers.

Since the first feathered dinosaur fossils were discovered, this topic has been highly contentious, with some researchers believing that a common ancestor led to all dinosaurs having feathers (yes, that’s right, in this theory the ferocious T-Rex and the lengthy diplodocus would have been covered from head to-toe in ostentatious feathers) whilst others believe that some had feather-esque scales instead.

To settle the debate once and for all, the researchers explain in a statement, more fossils need to be discovered:

“We need to find new sites with fossilised feathers, particularly from the Jurassic and the Triassic. The Triassic is especially important, as finding feathered dinosaurs at this early time in dinosaur evolution would suggest that all dinosaurs had an ancestor with feathers.”

If feathered dinosaurs aren’t found among early dinosaurs, then it makes it more likely feathers were an innovation among later groups.”

And if dinosaurs did develop feathers later on during their evolution, the question remains: why?

While it’s likely that the feathers on dinosaurs – whether they covered all of the creatures, or just a portion of them – were a little different to those we see on our birds today, their functions were likely quite similar, given that the terrain their roamed was not dissimilar to ours today.

With this in mind, the research team conducted a deep-dive into the characteristics of feathers, to understand how dinosaur feathers could have matched or deviated from todays norms:

“To identify a true feather from a living bird, we’d look to see what it’s made out of, and its structure. One of the characteristics we have to identify is that the feather grows out of a follicle in the skin.”

“It’s possible, however, that follicles and other modern characteristics might not have been present in all dinosaur feathers. Detailed anatomical work at a microscopic level to compare preserved skin and feathers with examples from living birds could help to resolve this.”

How can we understand this?

This, it seems, is back in the hands of the palaeontologists. With skin samples from dinosaurs and ancient birds – difficult, but not impossible to come by – experts will be able to examine any similarities or differences, to understand how the feather-bearing skin of dinosaurs differs, both from birds, and from other types of dinosaur.

So, as the Natural History Museum scientists admit, the work goes on.

And while we wait for an answer, you are fully permitted to continue imagining that T-Rex with a full coat of feathers.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a quantum computer simulation that has “reversed time” and physics may never be the same.