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Feathered T. rex relative found in China

Feathered tyrannosauroid

Artists impression of the early T. rex relative which had feathers, probably to keep it warm (Image: Portia Sloan / IVPP)

The remains of a feathery dragon-like forerunner of the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex has been found at a dinosaur graveyard in northeastern China.

The researchers led by Dr Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences report their findings in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

The "surprising" creature is a tyrannosaurid that lived between 139 million and 128 million years ago, said the researchers.

Small and slender, measuring about 1.6 metres from tip to tail, the creature had the characteristic two powerful rear feet and flesh-ripping teeth made famous by the T. Rex, whose 20-million-year reign ended with the twilight of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.

But it had several big differences - it had relatively long arms compared to its big descendant, as well as a long, dragon-like snout, and its scaly skin was covered with a fibrous coat.

Dinosaurs that are believed to have been the ancestors of modern birds had primitive feathery coverings like this.

But in this case, the purpose of the covering was not to provide an evolutionary step for flight but a means to keep warm, the authors suggest.

"This is the first direct fossil evidence that tyrannosaurids had protofeathers," said the researchers.

The discovery has been called Dilong paradoxus. The first word is a composite of the Chinese "di" (emperor) and "long" (dragon), while the second "refers to the surprising characters of this animal," said the researchers.

The find came from the Yixian Formation in western Liaoning, which has yielded a stunning abundance of unique fossils, many of them described by Xu himself.

Tags: biology, dinosaurs, geology, palaeontology