Vivian on 9/9/2010 at 20:37

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As a friend of mine blogs (http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/09/concavenator_incredible_allosauroid.php) here, they've found another weird sail-backed allosauroid theropod, along with the frankly terrifying (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrocanthosaurus) Acrocanthosaurus, except (and its a pretty major except) this one looks like it had wing feathers! Which, while not entirely unexpected, is still pretty exciting as this thing is a looong way down the family tree from previous feathery dinosaurs (mostly dromaeosaurs, e.g. raptors, of some kind). If true, it means that pretty much every theropod ever had feathers, and it confirms that wings were used for god-knows-what for a very long time before anything worked out they were pretty handy for flying. Plus, it has a goddamn shark fin on its bottom:

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/Concavenator-R-Martin-Sept-2010.jpg

My guess is it's a spoiler. Vroom!

Nicker on 9/9/2010 at 23:10

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Well, well... I wondered who that little shit was at the back of the class who used to heckle me when I did dinosaurs for Show And Tell in grade four! Australia may be far away but not far enough for my revenge to be felt. Release the raptors!

Turtle on 10/9/2010 at 01:29

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So you're saying that Tyrannosaurs were really just big emus?

R Soul on 10/9/2010 at 01:35

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Don't scoff at emus, they can be (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqrg_VCPgAQ) quite aggressive.

Al_B on 12/9/2010 at 06:56

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That page seems to suggest that even if Dilong had feathers it loses them as it grows larger. Larger in this context seems to suggest a size slightly less than waist-high to an average human. I can't see why T-Rex would have feathers as it is (apparently) much larger and their function would seem to be useless.