“Over the past 10 to 15 years we have come to realise that dinosaurs possessed feathers. At a minimum, feathers evolved with early theropod dinosaurs about 200-250 mya, two-legged flesh-eating dinosaurs that gave rise to T-rex. Today, palaeontologists suspect large dinosaurs lacking feathers lost them during evolution, similar to how large mammals such as elephants lost fur. “If we didn’t have all these fossils from China, our understanding of dinosaurs would be very different today,” says Vinther. A huge area in Liaoning province has well-preserved fossils of feathered dinosaurs and early birds, which are remarkably widespread.

Source: The Irish Times February 15, 2018 06:00 UTC