While studying at the University of Alberta , a first - class palaeontology educatee slip up across a surprisingly well - preserved dinosaur fossil , with its tail plumage and some soft tissue paper signally intact . ThisOrnithomimus(“bird mimic ” ) dinosaur , which be in the Late Cretaceous period in what is now forward-looking - day North America , has been described in the journalCretaceous Research .
“ This fossil was originally find in 2009 , ” discoverer and study generator Aaron van der Reest told IFLScience . “ It was collected and left to sit down in depot for four years … within 20 minutes of set forth oeuvre on it , I institute the buttocks … and then some black lines I recognized , ” which eventually turned out to be plume constituent .
This feather , toothless reptile was a theropod ( “ beast foot ” ) , a dinosaur character that ’s a subset of the saurischian mathematical group of dinosaurs , a mostly carnivorous collection of ancient reptiles . All of the saurischian dinosaur die out at the end of the famous asteroid - induced extinction event 65 million years ago – except , of course , the doll , theirsurviving descendants .
Unlike advanced bird , these ancient Struthio camelus - similar creatures could n’t pilot , but probably used feathering forthermoregulation – controlling their consistence temperature . “ Ostriches use au naturel skin to thermoregulate , ” say Reest in astatement . “ Because the feather on this specimen is almost identical to that of an ostrich , we can generalize thatOrnithomimuswas likely doing the same affair , using feathered part on their body to maintain body temperature . It would ’ve take care a mint like an Struthio camelus . ”
The relatively first-class degree of preservation allowed the authors of this study to examine the soft tissue paper of the beast . As Reest explain to IFLScience : “ It was probably preserved in a rapid inhumation by a river , covered in a fine mud with a low microbial substance , protecting it from oxygen - free-base decomposition . ”
From the mid - thigh ivory down , this dinosaur had simple cutis . Although the feathers were crushed by the crush of the sediment over sentence , the protein structures that made up the plume – ceratin – were pick up by a scanning electron microscope , revealing a 3D feathering pattern on the tail and body .
Ornithomimusforms part of a major dinosaur group ( theCoelurosauria ) that admit many of the saurischians , including modern - sidereal day birds . The scientific consensus is that modernistic - day birds evolve from the same ancestor ofsmall , carnivorous dinosaurscalled dromeosaurids , a group that exist in the same time point as theOrnithomimus .
“ dromaeosaur hold up good alongsideOrnithomimus ” , Reest continued . “ Just last yr , we found a fogy dromaeosaur , aSaurornitholestes – same region , same age . ” This new discovery will no doubt help fill in more of the detail of how the Coelurosauria group evolve through time .
“ This [ newOrnithomimus ] specimen … tightens the linkages between dinosaur and dame , in peculiar with respect to theropods , ” tell Alex Wolfe , second author on the newspaper , in astatement . “ There are so many factor of the morphology of this fossil as well as the alchemy of the feathers that are basically indistinguishable from advanced birds . ”
