Agençe France-Presse
Friday, 8 October 2004
Artists impression of the early T. rex relative which had feathers, probably to keep
it warm (Image: Portia Sloan / IVPP)
The remains of a feathery dragon-like forerunner of the mighty Tyrannosaurus
rex has been found at a dinosaur graveyard in northeastern China.
The researchers led by Dr Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and
Palaeoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences report their findings in
this week's issue of the journal Nature.
The "surprising" creature is a tyrannosaurid that lived between 139 million and
128 million years ago, said the researchers.
Small and slender, measuring about 1.6 metres from tip to tail, the creature had
the characteristic two powerful rear feet and flesh-ripping teeth made famous by
the T. Rex, whose 20-million-year reign ended with the twilight of the dinosaurs
some 65 million years ago.
But it had several big differences - it had relatively long arms compared to its big
descendant, as well as a long, dragon-like snout, and its scaly skin was covered
with a fibrous coat.
Dinosaurs that are believed to have been the ancestors of modern birds had
primitive feathery coverings like this.
But in this case, the purpose of the covering was not to provide an evolutionary
step for flight but a means to keep warm, the authors suggest.
The skull of Dilong paradoxus (Image: Xing Xu)
"This is the first direct fossil evidence that tyrannosaurids had protofeathers," said
the researchers.
The discovery has been called Dilong paradoxus. The first word is a composite of
the Chinese "di" (emperor) and "long" (dragon), while the second "refers to the
surprising characters of this animal," said the researchers.
The find came from the Yixian Formation in western Liaoning, which has yielded
a stunning abundance of unique fossils, many of them described by Xu himself.
{More on the implications of this important find at a later date... Dragons, and the alien reptoid enigma}FRJ
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