Feathered Dinosaurs
An artist's rendering of Yutyrannus huali, a feathered dinosaur recently discovered in China. I wanted to alert everyone to an article that appears in the journal Nature today, which has been causing quite a stir. (It was even written up in the NY Times!) The article announces the discovery of a new feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous in Liaoning Province, China. Above is an artist's rendering that gives you a sense of how scientists imagine these creatures looked in the flesh. There are a few things worth noting here. First, this creature is a fairly close (but older) relative of T. rex . Second, as the article points out, it is by far the largest feathered dinosaur that has been found so far. (The next largest was only about 1/40th its size.) Since the discovery of Archaeopteryx in the Victorian period, paleontologists have posited a link between extinct dinosaurs and modern birds. (Indeed, extinct dinosaurs are now usually r...