Not only was Ornithomimus feathered, but the dinosaur’s fluffy coat changed as it aged. Lovely art by Julius Csotonyi.
Posted on 10/28/2012 3:50:22 AM PDT by Renfield
Another week, another feathery dinosaur. Since the discovery of the fluffy Sinosauropteryx in 1996, paleontologists have discovered direct evidence of fuzz, feather-like bristles and complex plumage on over two dozen dinosaur genera. I love it, and I’m especially excited about a discovery announced today. In the latest issue of Science, University of Calgary paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky adds another enfluffled species to the dinosaurian ranks. Even better, the specimens raise hopes that many more dinosaurs might be preserved with their feathery coats intact.
Zelenitsky’s downy dinosaurs are not newly discovered species. Ornithomimus edmontonicus was initially described by famed bone hunter C.H. Sternberg in 1933, and it is one of the characteristic Late Cretaceous species found in Alberta, Canada’s fossil-rich Horseshoe Canyon Formation. In Sternberg’s time, these dinosaurs were thought to be scaly, but recent finds of so many feathery dinosaurs has raised the likeliehood that the “ostrich mimic” dinosaur was at least coated in some sort of dinofuzz....
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.smithsonianmag.com ...
Not only was Ornithomimus feathered, but the dinosaur’s fluffy coat changed as it aged. Lovely art by Julius Csotonyi.
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Thanks Renfield. |
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Tastes like chicken?
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