The membrane structure may have given some pterosaur species better control when they took to the skies, a new study says.
The fibers "would have made it easier to make subtle adjustments of the wing membrane when flying, perhaps giving them better flight capability," said study co-author Alexander Kellner, a paleontologist at Brazil's Museu Nacional (National Museum) in Rio de Janeiro.
The well-preserved fossil also included hairlike fibers quite different from the hair on modern mammals.
Similar fibers had been found on pterosaurs before, but researchers had wondered if they were simply products of tissue decay.
The newly examined pterosaur has the hairlike fibers all over its body and part of its wings. This suggests that the fibers were a covering that may have helped the pterosaurs control their body temperatures, Kellner said
Found in a slab of Chinese shale loaded with ancient crustaceans and ash, this 135-million-year-old fossil has some of the best preserved soft tissue yet found in a pterosaur, researchers said in an August 2009 study.
New analysis of the creature's wings has shown that it had uniquely complex wing membranes and a covering of fibers quite different from the hair on modern mammals.
Photograph courtesy Alexander Kellner