All Dinosaurs May Have Had Feathers

All Dinosaurs May Have Had Feathers

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Early dinosaurs probably looked a lot more like Big Bird than scientists once suspected. A newly discovered, nearly complete fossilized skeleton hints that all dinosaurs may have sported feathers. Researchers have found feathered dinosaurs before, but this one is more distantly related to birds than any previously discovered. Called Sciurumimus albersdoerferi, it belongs to a group of massive dinosaurs called megalosaurs that had sharp teeth, claws and a heavy-duty frame. The specimen — a youngster that lived about 150 million years ago — is only 70 centimeters long, but it could have grown up to 10 meters, about the length of a school bus.