German paleontologists have discovered a 247-million-year-old fossil of a reptile with a bizarre row of plumes sprouting from its back. The elaborate display is a paradox of evolution. The plumes bear some similarities to feathers, even though the newly discovered reptile was not closely related to birds.

Stephan Spiekman, a paleontologist at the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History in Germany and an author of the new study, said that the discovery could change how scientists think about the origin of feathers. In birds, a complex network of genes is enlisted to sprout feathers from their skin. Part of the network might have already evolved in early reptiles more than 300 million years ago.

If that’s true, Dr. Spiekman said, it would mean that other ancient reptiles might have sprouted strange ornaments of their own that are waiting to be discovered.

“I hope this will broaden our perspective,” Dr. Spiekman said. “And then who knows what we’ll find?”