Basal tyrannosauroids from China and evidence for protofeathers in tyrannosauroids |
| |
Authors: | Xu Xing Norell Mark A Kuang Xuewen Wang Xiaolin Zhao Qi Jia Chengkai |
| |
Affiliation: | Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China. xu@amnh.org |
| |
Abstract: | Tyrannosauroids are one of the last and the most successful large-bodied predatory dinosaur groups, but their early history remains poorly understood. Here we report a new basal tyrannosauroid from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of western Liaoning, China, which is small and gracile and has relatively long arms with three-fingered hands. The new taxon is the earliest known unquestionable tyrannosauroid found so far. It shows a mosaic of characters, including a derived cranial structure resembling that of derived tyrannosauroids and a primitive postcranial skeleton similar to basal coelurosaurians. One of the specimens also preserves a filamentous integumentary covering similar to that of other coelurosaurian theropods from western Liaoning. This provides the first direct fossil evidence that tyrannosauroids had protofeathers. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|