Beipiaosaurus.
“Dyzio” the Dilophosaurus on display in the Geological Museum of the Polish Geological Institute in Warsaw.
Using electron microscopes, a team of British, Irish and Chinese scientists studied the fossilized feathers from a Sinosauropteryx discovered in northern China. The prehistoric creature roamed the earth 125 million years ago.
The animal had alternating ginger and white rings down its tail according to their study published in Nature magazine.
“We can say for sure that this rather primitive flesh eating dinosaur has bristles that are feathers,” professor Mike Benton, who led the study at the University of Bristol, told the Daily Mail. “And we can say that the dark band on the end of the tail is russet or ginger.”
Their discovery also shed light on that eternal question that only scientists thought to ask.
Which came first, the feather or the wing?
“We now know that feathers came before wings,” Benton told the Mail, “so feathers did not originate as flight structures.”
