"Instead of giant lizards, they were basically weird birds."Ĭitation: "A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China." Xing Xu, Kebai Wang, Ke Zhang, Qingyu Ma, Lida Xing, Corwin Sullivan, Dongyu Hu, Shuqing Cheng & Shuo Wang. The feather findings "have rocked the world in terms of how we think of" dinosaurs, he said. "It's an exciting time to be a dinosaur paleontologist," said Norell. "At this point we don't have any data on the coloration of the plumage."
In addition to insulation, tyrannosaur feathering "might have also been involved in sexual selection if it were, for example, sufficiently brightly colored or strikingly patterned to attract potential mates," wrote Sullivan in an email. It's possible, though hard to determine from the current evidence, said study co-author Corwin Sullivan, a paleontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Such findings raise a question: What were tyrannosaur feathers used for? Might the king of dinosaurs have strutted like a peacock? He and Clarke recently described how a dinosaur called Microraptor likely used feathers not to fly, but as sexual displays to attract prospective mates. However, recent discoveries of feathered dinosaurs are changing our understanding of the life appearance of this popular species. At up to 40 ft long, it remains one of the largest known meat-eating dinosaurs. Norell and Clarke were not involved in the new study, but Norell helped discover the first feathered tyrannosaurs. Tyrannosaurus rex, the so-called ‘king of the tyrant lizards’, is probably the most famous dinosaur of all time. rex was feathered, at least during some stage of its life, as we do that australopithecines like Lucy had hair," said Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History.