"New Dinosaur Discovered: T. Rex Cousin Had Feathers
John Roach
for National Geographic News

October 6, 2004
A tiny, earlier cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex sported at least a partial
coat of hairlike feathers, scientists reported today. The dinosaur
chased prey and roamed the lakeside forests of Liaoning Province in
northern China some 130 million years ago, researchers said. (See
pictures of the new dinosaur.)

Although predicted by several paleontologists, the discovery marks the
first time featherlike structures have been directly observed on a
tyrannosaurid. Tyrannosaurids are predominantly large dinosaurs with
short forelimbs that roamed Earth 130 to 65 million years ago.

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"It's the kind of thing we expected, but we thought we might never find
a fossil that would justifiably show it," said Mark Norell, who
co-authored a paper that describes the new species. The study appears
tomorrow in the science journal Nature.

Norell, a curator and chair of the division of paleontology at New
York's American Museum of Natural History, said the discovery supports
theories that dinosaurs were birdlike, warm-blooded creatures that
evolved feathers to stay warm-not to fly.

Researchers named the new dinosaur species Dilong paradoxus. Dilong
derives from Mandarin words meaning "emperor" and "dragon." Paradoxus
refers to the unusual feathers found on the 5-foot-long
(1.5-meter-long) carnivore."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...hery_dino.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ered_dinosaur/


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