I happened by this news the other day, and it was so exciting that I decided I had to share it.
The new dinosaur is called
Yutyrannus huali, meaning "beautiful feathered tyrant". It was a close relative of
Tyrannosaurus rex that lived in northern China in the early Cretaceous, about 125 million years ago. Three specimens were discovered preserved together (suggesting that it may have been social), all of them with patchy skin impressions showing six-inch-long filamentous feathers, suggesting a coat of downy plumage that probably covered much of the body.
Yutyrannus isn't the first feathered tyrannosaur to be discovered:
Dilong paradoxus, a primitive, six-foot-long member of the family described in 2004, holds that title. And it wasn't nearly as big as
Tyrannosaurus rex, either. But at 30 feet (9 meters) long and weighing 1–1.5 tons,
Yutyrannus is the largest confirmed feathered dinosauróand, if you think about it, the largest feathered creature of any kindóyet discovered. (The previous record holder, the 7-foot-long
Beipiaosaurus inexpectus, is shown alongside
Yutyrannusóalong with a couple of pterosaurs, maybe
Feilongus youngi?óin
this illustration.)
This find is exciting because it's long been debated whether theropods with fuzzy ancestors lost their feathers when they grew to large sizes (similar to how large mammals like elephants and rhinos have less hair to better keep cool).
Yutyrannus's habitat is believed to have been colder than that of many other dinosaurs, so it's still possible that it was the woolly mammoth to
T. rex's elephant. But it proves that "large dinosaur" does not necessarily equal "no feathers". So the next time any of you dinosaur artists out there draws a big theropod in a nippy climate, feel free to make it fuzzy!
News links:
Archosaur MusingsNot Exactly Rocket ScienceP.S. Don'tcha just love the little goatees the artist puts on the
Yutyrannus?
I don't think that was evidenced in any of the feather impressions, but it sure looks good. The first thing I thought of when I saw that was Sky's wingtail character Aizon. Hey, Sky, do you know what this means? A professional paleoartist had the same idea for one of his scientific illustrations that you had for your own feathered dinosaur character! Even if there's no direct evidence for it, he endorses feather goatees as plausible theropod plumage! That's pretty cool. :!
