New Big Feathered Dino Busts Velociraptor Myths

A new elaborately feathered dinosaur is the largest ever discovered to have a well-preserved set of bird-like wings, according to a new study.

The new 5-foot-long dino, Zhenyuanlong suni, not only provides intriguing clues about the evolution of feathers, but it also busts myths about one of its close cousins, Velociraptor, a dinosaur made famous by the Jurassic Park movies.

“Look at Zhenyuanlong and you’re probably seeing, more or less, what a real Velociraptor would have looked like,” senior author Stephen Brusatte told Discovery News.

“Velociraptor would have been a feisty little feathered poodle from hell, not a drab scaly reptilian monster like in the Jurassic Park films,” added Brusatte, who is a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences. He co-authored the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, with paleontologist Junchang Lüof of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences.

The scientists came to their conclusions after studying the near-complete and exceptionally well-preserved skeleton for Z. suni, which lived around 125 million years ago in what is now the Liaoning Province of northeastern China. Like Velociraptor, it was a dromaeosaurid -- fast-running, feathered, sickled-clawed dinosaurs that were close relatives of birds.

Z. suni weighed around 25 pounds and, most strikingly, had short, 14-inch-long arms covered with long feathers that looked like quill pens. Today’s eagles and vultures sport a similar type of feather.

This opens up a big question: Could non-avian dinosaurs fly?

Brusatte, Lü and other experts doubt that relatively hefty Z. suni could have flapped itself off the ground.

“Besides the fact that it lacked the large flight muscles and some shoulder adaptations that allow birds to fly, it was simply too heavy,” Alex Dececchi, a researcher at the University of South Dakota, told Discovery News.

Dececchi said it's suspected at least one other non-avian dinosaur, Microraptor, could fly, because it had large wings with feathers that seem to have been suitable for flight.

Z. suni’s feathers, on the other hand, and those of the earliest known feathered dinosaurs, probably were more for form instead of function.

“The first feathers are seen in primitive dinosaurs that clearly lived on the ground and were too big to fly,” Brusatte explained. As for the feathers of Z. suni, “They may have evolved as display structures, gaudy ornaments used to attract mates or to intimidate rivals. Just think about what a peacock does with its tail feathers; it sure isn’t flying with them.”

Michael Habib, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California and a research associate at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, agrees the newly identified dinosaur probably couldn't fly. He did, however, tell Discovery News, “Broad wings with short, relatively weak forelimb bones can still be used to assist with leaping, turning and dropping from otherwise dangerous heights.”

However Z. suni’s feathered wings were used, Habib said that they help to confirm that the evolution of dinosaur/bird wings “was not necessarily tightly coupled to the evolution of flight throughout time. Wings, anatomically speaking, might just be something that many dinosaurs grew as a result of developmental constraints.”

Read more at Discovery News