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Tyrannosaurus Rex Relative Had Feathers

Posted by michael on from the uuuuuuuuuuuuuugly dept.

smooth wombat writes "The earliest known relative of the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex had primitive feathers, probably to help it keep warm. The primitive feathers were found on the remains of a dinosaur called Dilong paradoxus, which was about 1.5 meters (yards) long. It is the first member of the T. rex family with the characteristic. The fossil was found in western China in an area rich in fossil remains."

45 comments

  1. I didn't know.... by Sevn · · Score: 3, Funny

    That meters and yards were the exact same thing.

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    For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
    1. Re:I didn't know.... by IvoryRing · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Lets see, given all of 1 (one) sample of a species, I think that they are close enough (see size distribution within the following species: crocodiles, sharks, armadillos and turtles). What I'd like to know is this: Who (that has any interest in the story at all) doesn't know that they are roughly close enough for this purpose AND would find that bit of info useful for any purpse (such as making a museum quality display case, sight unseen, with no other measurements)?

    2. Re:I didn't know.... by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 1

      That meters and yards were the exact same thing.

      It's close enough that it makes a wonderful way of explaining to someone who doesn't know what a metre is, how big this thing is.

      Where's the problem?

    3. Re:I didn't know.... by adeyadey · · Score: 1

      ..which was about 1.5 meters (yards) long..

      I didnt know.. That meters and yards were the exact same thing.

      The key to this conundrum is held within the word "about"..

      --
      "You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
    4. Re:I didn't know.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1.5 meters = 1.64041995 yards

    5. Re:I didn't know.... by drsmithy · · Score: 1
      It's close enough that it makes a wonderful way of explaining to someone who doesn't know what a metre is, how big this thing is.

      I suspect that anyone who doesn't know what a metre is, probably won't be interested in dinosaurs :).

    6. Re:I didn't know.... by bob-zombie · · Score: 1

      a meter is approximately 36.5 inches long a yard is 36 inches long

    7. Re:I didn't know.... by Rubyflame · · Score: 1

      As anybody who's seen a meter stick knows, a meter is more like 39 inches long.

      --

      All it takes is nukes and nerves.
    8. Re:I didn't know.... by TheDayOfMe · · Score: 1

      Google is your friend 1 meter = 39.3700787 inch

      --

      One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure.

    9. Re:I didn't know.... by rk · · Score: 1

      It's way better than seeing someone translate too exactly, implying a precision that didn't exist before.

      Things like "The 500 kilometre journey to..." becomes the "310.6856 mile journey to..." always cracks me up.

  2. You didn't know?... by dn15 · · Score: 1

    ... well now you do! :P

    1. Re:You didn't know?... by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      * ... well now you do! :P*

      and qualify for rocket science! time to call nasa and apply!

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  3. So much has changed. by bretharder · · Score: 1

    When I was in grade school dinosaurs were giant scaly lizards.
    Now I turn on the Discovery Channel and they all have hair or feathers!

    1. Re:So much has changed. by svtmunk · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hmmmm... those silly dinosaurs are really starting to "flip-flop"

    2. Re:So much has changed. by IvoryRing · · Score: 1

      If they are flip flopping, they may not be quite as dead as we previously thought. Hmmm....

  4. Re:Nice sig, asshole by IvoryRing · · Score: 1

    I didn't know AC got mod points. Ya learn something new every day.

  5. Re:Nice sig, asshole by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you mean like meters and yards being the exact same thing?

  6. More info... by jangobongo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nature.com states that the feathers are actually protofeathers which are more like hair. Instead of having a central shaft and barbs, they are single flexible filaments that would have covered the dinosaur's body.

    Another interesting note from the article: The first Jurassic Park film featured scaly reptiles, but in the upcoming film Jurassic Park IV all the dinosaurs now will have feathers.

    --

    Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
    1. Re:More info... by DCMonkey · · Score: 1

      I wonder is JP IV will be as big a turkey as JP III.

      PS: I actually enjoyed JP III, but the pun must come first.

      --
      DCMonkey
    2. Re:More info... by Omkar · · Score: 1

      You mean JP and both its knock offs.

    3. Re:More info... by macz · · Score: 1
      Suckiness of plot aside...

      What about continuity? What if we find out that all Herbivores were democrats while carnivores were a solid lock for republican dionsaurs... will we go back to JP1 and have T Rex spit out the lawyer as a professional courtesy?

      stop the madness I want to get off.

      --
      ...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
    4. Re:More info... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nature.com states that the feathers are actually protofeathers which are more like hair.

      Furthermore, they were probably tightly meshed together, giving a fabric-like texture, and circumstantial evidence suggests they may have been purple.

  7. Breaking news... by Slime-dogg · · Score: 1

    The T-Rex turned into the Ostrich!

    More at 7...

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  8. Arise, Chicken by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Feathers, eh? Someone needs to contact BillyWitchDoctor.com and see if we can bring this thing back to life.

    ARISE, CHICKEN, ARISE!

    1. Re:Arise, Chicken by BottleCup · · Score: 1

      Yes, the T-Rex and its family were in fact overgrown carnivorous chickens. The only reason the chickens you see today dont eat us is because they are smaller than us.

  9. Not so strange... by jpkunst · · Score: 3, Informative

    Since birds are descendants of dinosaurs. See here, for example.

    JP

    1. Re:Not so strange... by 'nother+poster · · Score: 1

      Wasn't it Robert Bakker(sp?) who said something along the lines of, "shut up and eat your Thanksgiving raptor." :)

    2. Re:Not so strange... by jc42 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nope; not strange at all. Of course, it would be more accurate to say that birds (Aves) are a clade of the Dinosauria, but that would probably be a bit picky for /.'s style.

      While the evidence that firmly established this was only found in the past couple decades, it's perhaps worth noting that it's not at all a new idea. It was suggested by Charles Darwin, among others, that those fossilized bones of huge creatures that were being found in the early 1800's were remarkably similar to bird skeletons. Then, when the Archaeopterix fossils were found (in the Fraunhofer limestone formation in Germany), the connection was even more likely.

      But that wasn't really much evidence, and the idea was kicked around without much more information until the 1970's when a small gang of paleontologists led by John Ostrom started talking it up again. He pointed out that there were a number of other small dinosaurs, classified as Theropoda, that had been found, and they were remarkably similar to Archaeopterix, though they had arms rather than wings. Ostrom also pointed out that, although Archaeopterix was primitive in many respects (teeth, bony tail, denser bones than modern birds), it had fully modern feathers. He suggested that feathers were developed for insulation long before they were used for flight, and we should expect to find that many small dinosaurs had feathers.

      It didn't take long after that for small, feathered dinosaur fossils to turn up. The critical event was the opening up of China to academic and scientific work again after the decades of Mao's rule. There are formations in northwest China of fine-grained silt and limestone, 100-150 million years old, that preserve fine details of fossils. There are fossils of a number of early birds there, and also of other small non-flying dinosaurs. Many of the latter show feathers of various sorts.

      So, 150 years after Darwin suggested it, the conventional cladogram now has the birds as an offshoot of the theropod dinosaurs, and feathers are considered a primitive characteristic of an unknown portion of the dinosaurs. Mainly the smaller ones, of course, since the biggiest wouldn't have needed the insulation. Even the big ones may have had feathered crests, and their babies may have had feathers until they grew out of them.

      Due to my wife's allergies to cats and dogs, we share our house with four birds. We like to refer to them as our pet dinosaurs. Some people know what we're talking about. For the rest, we can say something like "Oh, didn't you hear? The dinosaurs weren't wiped out after all. Some of them survived; they're called 'birds'."

      And the cockatiels are moulting now, dropping feathers all over the place. The feathers mostly go into the compost. They sure don't fossilize very well.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    3. Re:Not so strange... by heldicus · · Score: 1

      Actually, cladistics would hold that Aves and Dinosaurs are descended from a common ancestor, but true dinosaurs are extinct. As a monophyletic taxon, Dinosaurs do not include Aves, but they are related.

      In other words, Crocodilians, Dinosaurs, and Birds are all Archosaurs...but Birds are not dinosaurs.

      I suppose however, that since cladistics is based largely on argument...the literature will support both positions.

    4. Re:Not so strange... by flyingsquid · · Score: 1
      Darwin didn't actually suggest a dinosaurian origin of birds, as far as I know, but his contemporary Thomas Henry Huxley did.

      The Chinese beds that produce this stuff are simply astonishing. They preserve plants, fish, insects, furry mammals, furry pterosaurs... and so on. Some of these critters actually preserve color patterns: the fish preserve countershading, and many of the insects have spots and stripes. The little carnivorous dinosaur Sinosauropteryx actually has stripes on the furry tail.

      The dromaeosaurs ("raptors") out of these beds are even cooler. They have flight feathers- not just on the arms, but also on the feet. The later dromaeosaurs (Velociraptor and its kin)seem to be flightless offshoots of these early fliers- so in this case at least, some dinosaurs are descended from birds rather than vice versa.

  10. Place all Creationism vs Evolution Arguments HERE. by jasno · · Score: 2, Funny

    Flame away.

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    http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
  11. Re:Place all Creationism vs Evolution Arguments HE by jd · · Score: 4, Funny
    I didn't know they took arguments. Hmmm.


    man creationism


    Creationism(3)


    NAME

    • Creationism - apply or remove religious flags to given process


    SYNOPSIS

    • #include <philosophy.h>

    • creationism(pid_t pid, uit16_t fundamentalism);


    Ok, I guess it does take arguments.

    --
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  12. Re:Place all Creationism vs Evolution Arguments HE by Planesdragon · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sure.

    "Even if God took a literal six earth revolutions to create the cosmos, He put those bone-shaped rocks there knowing that we would eventually figure out the apparant evolution therein, which would help us understand how the world will move on from the moment He finished the constructive part of creation. Thus, it is entirely appropriate for us to teach evolution--God wants us to."

  13. Fluffy T-Rex is big news? by francisew · · Score: 1

    Seems to me that what's new here is that t-rex was feathery. It's already pretty well accepted that some dinosaurs had feathers, and that birds are descended from some dino family branch.

    It is still funny to picture a bunch of these things. I mean, talk about crossing images... pack of bloodthirsty, dangerous t-rex... Now add on the feathers...

    and yes, t-rex probably were more solitary...

    1. Re:Fluffy T-Rex is big news? by TheLink · · Score: 1

      Big Bird?

      --
  14. Re:Place all Creationism vs Evolution Arguments HE by dingbatdr · · Score: 1

    This is the funniest post I have seen in ages.

    dtg

    --
    The truth is an offense, but not a sin.------R. N. Marley
  15. Awwww! by adeyadey · · Score: 1

    Awww! Cute little kitt.. Hey!

    --
    "You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
  16. Beware The Feathered Monsters by rts008 · · Score: 1

    Makes you leary of a flock of chickens now, doesn't it?

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  17. hmm by fredopalus · · Score: 3, Funny

    What came first?

    The Chicken or the T-Rex?

    --
    Jonahweb.com has stuff.
    1. Re:hmm by bursch-X · · Score: 1

      The Egg, of course.

      But thinking about this what, yes what if the T-Rex's voice was like a giant chicken voice... Imagine a T-Rex sitting on a hill and roaring his low pitched earth shattering Cock-A-Doodledoo into the early morning.

      I'd love to see Jurassic Park adapt this.

      --
      There are two rules for success:
      1. Never tell everything you know.
  18. the problem... by interactive_civilian · · Score: 1
    Christopher Thomas said:
    It's close enough that it makes a wonderful way of explaining to someone who doesn't know what a metre is, how big this thing is.

    Where's the problem?

    I'm sure that is exactly what the Nasa engineers were thinking when they were programming that Mars probe that they lost...

    --
    "Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
  19. Re:Nice sig, asshole by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Naw, he meant like not surfing slashdot at work. If you click on his sig, you'll know what I mean.

  20. Re:Place all Creationism vs Evolution Arguments HE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Alright, I'll give this one a shot.

    Dinosaur bones were just discarded from alien pic-nics... aliens who were also created by God.

    Honestly! How likely is it that humans live on a planet with near -exactly- the right conditions for present life? Why, the chances of that happening randomly are astronomical! We must have been put here.

  21. hmm.... by absolutes · · Score: 1

    It would be interesting to find out what these 'protofeathers' consisted of. If Dilong paradoxus lived between 139 and 128 million years ago, and Archaeopteryx 150 million years ago, that would mean feathers were evolving independently, from different lineages. I think thats stretching the imagination. ...just a little.