Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

About 124 million years ago the fossil site in Liaoning Province, China, was a large lake system. Intermittent volcanic eruptions resulted in animals being entombed in volcanic ash and mud. The fossils that resulted were often so well preserved that the feather covering of many of the dinosaurs, previously believed to have had a normal reptile skin, were seen to have been covered with feathers. Many new dinosaurs were also found, and many of them were also found to be feathered. As well as dinosaurs there were also fish, mammals, turtles and insects.

Some of the first theropod dinosaurs with feathers found at this site were about the size of turkeys, Sinosauropteryx, Protoarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx. Some, such as Beipiaosaurus, were the size of ostriches. The feathers ranged in type from simple, hair-like feathers to long feathers similar in appearance to those of birds. It was found that the feather covering was present in a wide range of theropods, leading to the suggestion that all theropods might have had feathers. If this turns out to be true well known theropods such as T. rex, Deinonychus and Velociraptor might all have been covered in feathers.

Sources & Further reading

• Feathered Dinosaurs, Christopher Sloan, National Geographic Society
• Feathered Dinosaurs: The Origin of Birds, John Long and Peter Schouten, CSIRO Publishing, 2008.