WASHINGTON: Velociraptor, the fierce and fast-moving dinosaur made popular by the film Jurassic Park, actually had feathers, according to a new study.
Though many bipedal, carnivorous 'theropod' dinosaurs – such as T.rex – have recently been revealed as species that bore feathers, Velcoiraptor was not among them. However, a fresh examination of the species' bones, has now found indications of 'quill knobs' where feathers may have been anchored.
Palaeontologists from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and Chicago's Field Museum made the discovery while freshly examining fossils of a forearm bone that was dug up in Mongolia in 1998. They report the find today in the U.S. journal Science
"The lack of quill knobs does not necessarily mean that a dinosaur did not have feathers," said lead author of the study Alan Turner. "Finding quill knobs on the Velociraptor, though, means that it definitely had feathers. This is something we'd long suspected, but no one had been able to prove."
Feathers, but no flight
The feathers would have been anchored to the quill knobs via ligaments, but the study's authors believe the dinosaur was not able to fly.
The Velociraptor skeleton that was studied, stood one metre tall and was about 1.5 m long and weighed 14 kg – but its "relatively short forelimbs compared to a modern bird ... indicated it lacked volant, or flight, abilities," said Turner.
"Perhaps an ancestor of the Velociraptor lost the ability to fly, but retained its feathers [which] may have been useful for display, to shield nests, for temperature control, or to help it manoeuvre while running," he added.
The bones studied were found in the Gobi desert and are believed to be from the Cretaceous Period, dating to around 80 million years ago.
Palaeontologists believe that the first birds appeared 150 million years ago and that they were descendants of small, feathered dinosaurs.
