Abstract
The high specificity of bird ectoparasites has frequently been interpreted to mean that they have a long evolutionary history1. Either they were present as parasites before the main diversification of birds in the Cretaceous period2, or they evolved independently into avian parasites on several occasions. The recent discovery of dinosaurs with feathers3 suggests that birds may have inherited some of their ectoparasites from feathered theropod dinosaurs. We have now found microscopic egg-like structures on the surface of a fossil feather of approximately 120 million years old from the Crato Formation (Lower Cretaceous period) of northeast Brazil. They closely resemble the eggs of ectoparasitic feather mites and indicate an early origin for this specialized group of Acari.
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