28 Days Of Dinosauria - 4

[swordznsorcery]

Day 04: From China in the early Cretaceous (approx 130 million years ago), Sinosauropteryx prima was an adorable little fellow with another funky name (Chinese dragon bird!) There have been some amazing fossils coming out of China in recent years, showing some really terrific detail, and they've been particularly great for preserved feathers. Sinosauropteryx was the first dinosaur to undergo microscopic analysis of its feathers, to examine the fossilised melanosomes (cells that give colour to feathers). Consequently, with an obvious nod to the fact that error is always possible, we now know that it was an orangey-brown, with white stripes. Knowing what colour dinosaurs were will never cease to be awesome.

Cute fossil here.

Comments

[corvidology]

I'm glad you're sharing some of the smaller ones. I think they all get overlooked as T.Rex stomps through our brain.

But that's Marc Bolan for you...

[swordznsorcery]

That most musical of dinosaurs. :)

I love T. rex of course. There's a wonderful book, published a couple of years ago, called "The Tyrannosaur Chronicles", which collates everything that we know about the tyrannosaurids, and it's a great read. But it's good to let some others get a look in!

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, that is definitely adorable... as dinosaurs go! It's like a lemur dinosaur.

[swordznsorcery]

Yes, it does look a bit lemury with that tail. Less so with the flesh on though!

[dimity_blue]

It had a bandit mask too!? ♥

TIL! Dinosaurs can be cute (at a distance of 130 million years).

[swordznsorcery]

It certainly looks like they had bandit masks, yes. Makes for good camouflage, apparently.

[liadt]

Aw the Sinosauropteryx fossil is sweet and fluffy!

[swordznsorcery]

Spoken like a true palaeontologist!

It is cute, yes. It's amazing how well that fuzzy layer has been preserved.