hello everyone , I am actually stuck with a particular RC question could anyone provide me the proper explanation for the same
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825−1895), one of Charles Darwin’s earliest and most staunch defenders, as well as an influential naturalist in his own right, first observed the many similarities between reptiles and birds. Huxley noted, for example, that the wings of a bird hid reptilian fingers. Today, few scientists challenge not only the link between birds and reptiles in general, but between birds and theropods, a group of bipedal saurischian dinosaurs. Hundreds of structural similarities exist, including elongated arms, large eye openings, swiveling wrists, three forward-facing toes, and hollow bones.
The most diverse theropod group is the coelurosaurs, a carnivorous bipedal group that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex and the Velociraptor, the latter of which is quite similar to the oldest known bird, the Archaeopteryx. Coelurosauria, in fact, is the clade that contains all theropods more closely related to birds than to carnosaurs, and all coelurosaurs have been thought to possess feathers.
However, a recent find of what seems to be an entirely new—and apparently featherless—coelurosaur has complicated the subject. Several suggestions have been made as to why this particular chicken-sized dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period lacked feathers.
One possibility is that, in some creatures, feathers were replaced by scales because the feathers were not needed for warmth, recognition of family members, or mating rituals—uses that feathers were thought to have had for dinosaurs that did not fly. It is also possible that some coelurosaurs had feathers in only certain geographic areas. Another idea is that this particular coelurosaur was so young that it had not yet grown feathers.
A more fundamentally profound alternative is that, contrary to conventional scientific thought, birds and feathered dinosaurs developed feathers independently of each other rather than from a common ancestor. This would certainly not be the first case of what is known as convergent evolution. Fish and certain mammals can swim,but have evolved this attribute separately. Likewise, insects have wings, but developed them independently from birds. Luckily, the new fossil of what has been named a Juravenator is well-preserved almost in its entirety. More insights into why it did not have feathers will likely lead to new insights into how other animals did develop this trait.
this is the passage
3. According to the passage, feathers on dinosaurs .
(A) were not used for flight
(B) were not always present at birth
(C) were first noted by Huxley
(D) might have evolved from scales
(E) were a characteristic of all coelurosaurs