Dinosaurs of a Feather

This past week the world was rocked by the news of yet another feathered dinosaur being discovered in - wait for it - China. Called Zhenyuanlong (translation, "Zhenyuan's dragon", after the man who obtained the specimen for study), it is just the latest in a sensational series of Chinese dinosaur specimens sporting feathers.

China is currently the mother lode of feathered dinosaur fossils. This region is ground zero of a modern day feathered dinosaur gold rush, still churning out one spectacular feathered find after another.

Virtually "down the road" from where the newly described dinosaur was discovered, the Dino Cam, calibrated to 73 million years ago in Mongolia, has snapped a shot of a pack of sprinting velociraptors - feathered cousins to Zhenyuanlong. 

From the early Cretaceous of 120 million years ago, Zhenyuanlong may have been an ancestor to Velociraptor, which inhabited late Cretaceous Asia, between 75 to 71 million years ago. Despite the 50 million year separation between the two dinosaurs, they are clearly anatomically related and share many physiological features - including a substantial cloak of feathers. The arm feathers, in particular, are especially well preserved in Zhenyuanlong, with precise outlines seen in exquisite detail. In fact, Zhenyuanlong does a service to Velociraptor, providing a vivid snapshot of how dinosaurs very similar to Velociraptor looked in life. 

As the first important dinosaur that suggested the presence of feathers, Velociraptor has become the most famous feathered dinosaur - in fact, the genus that really jumpstarted the feather "fever", that revolutionized the public perception, as well as the scientific consideration, of dinosaur appearance and evolutionary relationships. 

As a result of the preponderance of bird-like dinosaur specimens discovered in recent years, the dino-bird connection is being reinforced with increasing conviction. And we benefit from this connection, since the one key aspect of dinosaurs that eludes science - how they looked in life, how they were colored, etc. - is now within reach. Although fossils don't provide this information directly, the knowledge that many species were feathered (aka bird-like) enables us to have bona-fide, living references to the WAY dinosaurs looked - in the form of birds. We may not be able to determine the specific colors or patterns that specific feathered dinosaur species had, but we can get a sense of the likely range and types of colors and patterns that dinosaurs possessed, as seen in the direct descendants of dinosaurs, modern birds. As dinosaurs become closer to birds, birds have become evidence: birds give us insight to the possible colors and patterns of dinosaurs.

And it works both ways: as the dino-bird connection increases scientifically, birds are increasingly "becoming" dinosaurs. Birds will never be the same. So, the next time you see a robin, a goldfinch, a raven, a hawk, a parrot, or a cassowary and ostrich at a zoo, consider that you're looking at not just a living descendant of a dinosaur, but at the colors and patterns that dinosaurs must have possessed millions of years ago.

And, for the record, as exciting as the film is, the dinosaurs of Jurassic World would have been even scarier if the producers expanded on reality, and didn't shy away from exploring the phenomenal range and riot of color that FEATHERED dinosaurs must have been - imagine THAT in 3D!