Yutyrannus & Other Feathered Dinosaurs

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The Yutyrannus hauli was discovered in 2012.  It is possibly an early ancestor to Tyrannosaurus rex.   At the very least they are related with a common ancestor.   Yutyrannus lived in what is now China.  It had 3 claws on each hand, and surprisingly, it had filamentous feathers.  Also called stage 1 feathers or proto-feathers.  This animal was 30 feet (9 meters) long.  It weighed just over 3,000 lbs. (1.361 kg).  So, it was considerably smaller than a T. rex.  But the FEATHERS!  Yutyrannus is the largest known Theropod dinosaur to have feathers or proto-feathers!  This might mean that its possible decendant, T. rex, may have also had feathers!  No T. rex has been found to have feathers, but that might be discovered one day.  Some paleontologist point out that larger animals have trouble getting rid of heat so feathers might have been a problem.  Some paleontologists think that T. rex young might have hatched with proto-feathers, to keep them warm while they were small.  Then as the young T. rex matured and got larger they no longer needed them so they lost the feathers.

Yutyrannus hauli

The Velociraptor is a well known dinosaur, however, a fairly new discovery has our view of it changed.  In 2007 paleontologists found quill knobs on a forearm of a Velociraptor fossilized skeleton.  The quill knob shows where feathers are anchored in the bone.  Modern birds have these quill knobs.  So, we used to just infer that Velocirapto movies but we now know that they DID have feathers.  I loved the Jurassic Park / Jurassic World movies, but their Velocirpators should have had more proto-feathers or even regular feathers...but not flight feathers.  Velociraptor looked less like lizards...  and more like very large roadrunners.  Velociraptors were actually about 6-7 ft.

(2+ m)  long... and about 4 ft. tall (1.6 m).  Yes, there were other raptor dinosaurs that were bigger. . . so the movies can still have 15 foot long raptors...such as Utahraptor!
Just because an animal has feathers it does not mean it is or was not a vicious killer!  Velociraptor was found in what is now the Mongolian desert.  Where the fossils were found is STILL a desert area.  You'll notice that the species name indicates where the fossilized remains were found.

Velociraptor mongoliensis with Young