Slightly Feathered T. rex

Slightly Featherd T. rex

There is some thought that we will evenetually discover that most of the later Theropod dinosuars were feathered.  But large animals that live in warm environments, (like rhinos and elephants),  have trouble staying cool.  Elephants have only a tiny bit of hair on their bodies.  

The Late Cretaceous Period was a very warm time for Planet Earth.  This was probably due to lots of venting Carbon Dioxide or CO2 that was venting from lots of volcanic eruptions.  Although recently, scientists from Goethe University have found evidence that the Cretaceous warm period was interrupted  by 6 million years of cooler weather.  Still, MOST of the Cretaceous Period was a runaway greenhouse effect and the world was much warmer with no polar ice caps.  The ocean was around 95 degrees Fahrenheit or 35 Celsius.   

SO.. I got to thinking and I wondered if maybe large Theropods, like Tyrannosaurus rex, had feathers, but only a few tiny ones compared to fully feathered dinos like Microraptor.  Therefore I drew T. rex here with only a few feathers.  These are tiny protofeathers.  They may even have been remnants of a more fully feathered early Tyrannosaur from millions of years before.  

One other idea is that maybe T. rex had fuller feathers when young.   So the chick you see hatching here is covered in downy feathers.  Mommy T. rex is only sparsely covered.   

I heard a newsman say that birds evolved from T. rex.  That is very inaccurate.  T. rex went exticnt with the asteroid hittig the Yucatan Penninsula of Mexico.  T. rex left no descendants.  T. rex is an evolutionary dead end.  Birds evolved from animals like Microraptor.  Microraptor was a true flying dinosaur.  Some people think that  birds evolved form Pterosaurs... or Pterodactyls.  That is also false.  Pterosaurs were also victims to the asteroid (or maybe a comet) impact.  

By the time the space junk killed off or finished off the big dinos, birds already had a foothold on Earth. 

Note:  This top drawing is found in printable form by clicking on the top buttons labeled 

......Paleontology. . . . .or . . . . . .All Printables.  Scroll down to the bottom of the drop down menu for new drawings like this slightly feathered T. rex.   The Microraptor will be further up the list.  It is an older drawing.  

Microraptor Flying Through The Forest