Dinosaur in pen to highlight

2009/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Eboluzioa
• Paleontologia
• Arkeologia

The Beipiaosaurus dinosaur feathers had the same function as in many birds: stand out to attract your partner or chase away your enemies. This was deduced by researchers from the Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Vertebrates of China, after analyzing the last fossil of this species.

A few years ago fossils of plumose dinosaurs appeared, especially in China, where they also found the first fossil of Beipiaosaurus in 1999. Paleontologists did not know the function of feathers, but believed they could serve as thermal insulators.

Now, however, they have found another fossil of the Beipiaosaurus that has been able to study it better. Thus, they realize that, besides the small and smooth feathers, it had other feathers, very different, long and hard. In the head, these feathers had in the neck and in the tail; in fact, the current birds also have that plumage that has the function of highlighting or showing. For this reason, they have concluded that in dinosaurs they could have the same function.