An exceptionally preserved Lower Cretaceous ecosystem

Zhonghe Zhou (), Paul M. Barrett and Jason Hilton
Additional contact information
Zhonghe Zhou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Paul M. Barrett: University of Oxford
Jason Hilton: National Museums of Scotland

Nature, 2003, vol. 421, issue 6925, 807-814

Abstract: Abstract Fieldwork in the Early Cretaceous Jehol Group, northeastern China has revealed a plethora of extraordinarily well-preserved fossils that are shaping some of the most contentious debates in palaeontology and evolutionary biology. These discoveries include feathered theropod dinosaurs and early birds, which provide additional, indisputable support for the dinosaurian ancestry of birds, and much new evidence on the evolution of feathers and flight. Specimens of putative basal angiosperms and primitive mammals are clarifying details of the early radiations of these major clades. Detailed soft-tissue preservation of the organisms from the Jehol Biota is providing palaeobiological insights that would not normally be accessible from the fossil record.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01420 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:421:y:2003:i:6925:d:10.1038_nature01420

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature01420

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().