Posted on 10/06/2004 2:08:54 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
Ancestors of the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex were clothed in delicate feathers, a fossil discovered in China suggests. The find may come as a surprise to people used to images of Tyrannosaurus as a scaly monster. But many palaeontologists have been predicting just such a find ever since the first evidence of a dinosaur with a feathery coat came from the same site in Liaoning in 1995.
The 130 million-year-old fossil is the oldest member recorded from the tyrannosauroid family, and the first in the group with a feather-like covering. The discovery of its skull and other fragments is reported today in Nature1.
The new dinosaur has been christened Dilong paradoxus. Dilong means Emperor dragon. "We added paradoxus to its name because it's so counter-intuitive to think of feathers and a Tyrannosaurus together," says team member Mark Norell at the American Museum of Natural History in New York city.
Evidence of these so-called protofeathers is usually difficult to find because feathers decay when they are exposed to oxygen. But at Liaoning, the specimens appear to have been buried extremely quickly under fine-grained volcanic ash, helping to preserve the soft, feathery outlines.
"Dilong is an exciting find because it's so complete," says palaeontologist Thomas Holtz of the University of Maryland in College Park, "and the feathers are the icing on the cake."
Holtz hopes that the new evidence will convince the scientific community that feathers evolved on dinosaurs long before the appearance of birds. Until now, some palaeontologists have been dubious that feathered tyrannosauroids existed.
Feathered and petite
The jackal-sized Dilong was far smaller than T. rex, which roamed the Earth some 65 million years later. But Dilong shares many of its characteristics.
The meateater probably had a broad, square skull and powerful jaws, says Holtz. But while the forelimbs of T. rex had dwindled until they were almost useless, Dilong would have been able to clutch food in its hands and bring it to its mouth.
Dilong's protofeathers are not what we would recognise as feathers today, but are their evolutionary precursors. Rather than having a central shaft and barbs, they are single flexible filaments that would have covered the dinosaur's body like hair.
The protofeathers would most likely have been used for insulation rather than flight, Norell says. The giant T. rex had probably lost the featherlike features of its predecessors because, with its much larger size, it would have had more difficulty losing heat than keeping it. Tyrannosaurus chicks may have had a downy cover, though.
However, the discovery of feathered dinosaurs at Liaoning is trickling down into popular culture. The first Jurassic Park film featured mainly scaly reptiles, Norell says, "But from what I've seen of the first shots of Jurassic Park IV, all the dinosaurs now have feathers."
[From PH:] The article has a small sketch, but no pics. The footnote in the article is this: Xu X., et al. Nature, 431. 680 - 684 (2004). And in the original artice there's a link to the Letter in Nature.
Ping
Where'd you get that from the story?
Italicized by mistake and not a quote of anything. An attempted topic sentence:
"The origin of birds from the theropod group is further supported by this find."
One razor sharp Wakazashi or Katana
One full sized Spade for evisceration
N-100 particle mask
100 meters Nylon rope
One Dodge3500 Cummin turbo diesel with 8,000 winch
One 20' flatbed trailer rated for 6000 pounds
Recommended hunting weapon : XM-109 Rilfe w 25mm HEDP bullets.
I'm not going there. Nuh-uh. |
Sounds like you've done this before...
Thanks for the thoughtul post. Some one wiser in the ways of Lexus-Nexus may be able to fill in the details, but there are reports of a thriving cottage industry producing feathered dinosaur fossils among ambitious chinese entrepreneurs. I might've read about that in Discover Magazine. Having stated my Caveat, I gotta confess that I'm the original Dinosaur Kid, having visited the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago many times in the early sixties. Luckily, for me, my spiritual background, though yielding to none in the rigours of Fire and Brimstone has in my lifetime been hospitable to the Arts and Sciences, a healthy balance. I can never walk across a lawn where an autumn congregation of blackbirds have convened without flashing back to a stroll through Jurassic Park.
Not another prediction of evolutionary biology verified?????
Noooooooooo....!!!!
Sounds like there were gay dinosaurs. No wonder they became extinct.
The Odo Theory of Evolution is only believed by fundamentalist Christians and Trekkers.
Dilong's protofeathers are not what we would recognise as feathers today, but are their evolutionary precursors. Rather than having a central shaft and barbs, they are single flexible filaments that would have covered the dinosaur's body like hair.
I have single flexible filaments on the top of my head.
Artist Portia Sloan worked with the Chinese scientists who discovered the new dinosaur to produce this drawing of what it might have looked like.
The skull of the primitive tyrannosauroidthe earliest of its kind yet foundwas discovered in the Yixian formation of western Liaoning, China, the source of many species of fossil birds and dinosaurs with feathers as well as protofeathers (primitive forms of feathers).
>But many palaeontologists have been predicting just such a find ever since the first evidence of a dinosaur with a feathery coat came from the same site in Liaoning in 1995.<
Oops!
Isn't that an acknowledged fraud?
Do carnivores taste good? I'm trying to think if I've ever eaten a carnivore...cows, pigs, lamb, chickens, buffalo, deer, rabbits...
What about fish?
Hmmm. Let's see. Bear - Gamey. Shark - Kinda good. Barracuda - Not so good.
I just figured it out. Prey isn't prey because it's vulnerable, and predators aren't predators because they're powerful.
It's prey because it's tasty, and predator because it's not. {;^)
Man, I haven't heard from you in a long time. Hope you had a great vacation.
I always thought a pigeon was a feathered rat.
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