Feathered Dinosaur Fossil is Largest Ever Found

Paleontologists in China have discovered the fossil remains of the largest known feathered animal, alive or extinct. Feathers aren’t a new find in dinosaur hunting, but previously found feathered species were 40 times smaller than the 30-foot long adult found in the Liaoning Province in northeastern China.

Named Yutyrannus huali, a combination of Latin and Mandarin meaning “beautiful feathered tyrant,” the distant relative of T. Rex had feathers that resembled the fuzzy down of modern chicks. The findings also revealed that dinosaurs kept their feathers through adulthood, a fact that sweeps aside a notion that plumage was only for the young and shed as they grew.

While researchers pointed to the possibility of insulation in a cooling climate, the use of the feathers for appearances hasn’t been totally ruled out either. Whatever the feathered giant means, the latest findings prove one thing without a doubt: It’s an exciting time to be a paleontologist.
www.slate.com

There is some speculation going around that perhaps even the might T. Rex himself had feathers as mentioned in this article:

Was T. rex fuzzy?
The discovery of a giant meat-eating dinosaur with a soft, fluffy coat has some scientists rethinking what Tyrannosaurus rex looked like.

With a killer jaw and sharp claws, T. rex has always been shown as having scaly skin in movies and museums. But the discovery of one of its earlier relatives makes scientists think the king of the dinosaurs had a softer side.

The evidence comes from the discovery of a new tyrannosaur species in northeastern China that lived 60 million years before T. rex. Along with the bones, researchers found fluffy down, making it the largest feathered dinosaur ever found.

If a T. rex relative had feathers, why not T. rexhimself?

“People need to start changing their image of T. rex,” said Luis Chiappe, director of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who was not part of the team that discovered the new species.

Much smaller dinosaurs with primitive feathers have been found in recent years, but this is the first direct sign of a huge, shaggy dinosaur. Scientists have long debated whether gigantic dinosaurs lost their feathers as they got bigger or whether they just didn’t have as many feathers.

The new tyrannosaur species, Yutyrannus huali, was described this month in the journal Nature. Its name is a blend of Latin and Mandarin and translates to “beautiful feathered tyrant.”
www.washingtonpost.com

It will be interesting to see how the results of this find pan out.  It just goes to show that there is certainly an infinite amount more to be learned about these ancient mystical creature we call “Dinosaurs”.

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