feathered dinosaurs

[sargentlard]

The concept of this came to my attention today....

Dinosaurs with feathers

http://www.gavinrymill.com/dinosaurs/feathers/dinos.html

http://www.geocities.com/dannsdinosaurs/featdino.html

I believe one was discovered recently in China.

Anyone else heard of them?....I am surprised I never came across this before, ever.

 

[vslayer]

read about that in the news last nite, intrueging is it not?

The new animal, named Dilong - from the Chinese words for "emperor dragon" - was lightly built and about 1.5 metres long. It lived between 128 and 139 million years ago, predating Tyrannosaurus rex by 60 to 70 million years.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996500

 

[valich]

All birds (Aves) evolved from dinosaurs. The original dinosaur birds were huge (their was an article on CNN.com science about this a couple weeks ago). One bird in particular had a wing span that was equal in size to the width of an F-14 airplane, yet their body size was very large. These dinosaur birds were able to fly for three main reasons: one, they had hollow bones that diminished their overall weight; two, their wing membranes were very thin; and three, ther body was above their wing area, not below, and this provided better lift. Check out a picture of a Dehavolin aircraft as a comparison (Southwest airlines always uses them for short flights).