First Record of a Fossil Feather / by Chris Maynard

The famous fossil feather — not from an Archaeopteryx

In 1861 in Germany, this feather was found. It was the first one ever recorded and created quite a stir. Then, after Archaeopteryx skeletons were unearthed in the same limestone rock, this feather was long thought to be from that same kind of bird. But recent analysis shows it was from a different, unknown species. Which indicates to me that one, we don’t know a lot about what happened 150 million years ago and two, that a wondrous diversity of life forms was, of course, happening then.

https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/press/press-releases/mystery-missing-quill-solved