neossoptile

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  1. One of the feathers which form the covering of a newly-hatched bird, resembling but distinct from the down of an adult bird. Neossoptiles are distinguished by having a very short calamus; a very short rhachis, or none at all; practical absence of cilia; long slender rami; and no aftershaft, save in the emu. The term is correlative with mesoptile and teleoptile. The whole process [evolution of horns and antlers] recalls the relation of the neossoptile to the teleoptile or permanent feather, and still more the shedding of our own fœtal finger-nails. Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1902, p. 213.

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  1. Greek νεοσσ, σ1ός, a chick, + πτίλον, a down feather.
 

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