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Dinosaur
A dinosaur with feathers? Huge dino bones
in China surprise scientists.

W
Place your cursor over the slideshow for captions.
hat has feathers, a beak . and weighs about 1.4 tons? No, it's not Big Bird. It's a new dinosaur!

Paleontologists in China have discovered the fossil of a feathered dinosaur that no one has ever seen before. They are calling it Gigantoraptor. It certainly was gigantic;some of the bones are almost 26 feet long! It also had a 10-inch beak. Gigantoraptor lived about 80 million years ago and weighed about 3,000 pounds. That's 35 times heavier than other feathered dinosaurs!

Though scientists say the Gigantoraptor had feathers on its arms and tail, it couldn't fly. At 3,000 pounds, "no one would expect this species to fly," said Xu Xing, the paleontologist who discovered the Gigantoraptor. He said that its feathers were probably used to keep its eggs warm.

Critical Thinking QuestionsDinosaur
  • Why do you think scientists thought that as dinosaurs became more birdlike, they became smaller?

  • Why might many herbivores have long necks? Why might many carnivores have sharp claws?
    • Most scientists believe that modern birds evolved from small, feathered dinosaurs. "From what we had known before, birdlike dinosaurs were very, very small," Xu said. As the dinosaurs changed over time, scientists believed the creatures got smaller and more birdlike. But the supersized Gigantoraptor, which lived toward the end of dinosaurs' reign, suggests otherwise. Xu equates finding the Gigantoraptor to "having a mouse that is the size of a horse or cow." He told the journal Nature, that Gigantoraptor's discovery will help scientists better figure out how dinosaurs evolved. "It's more complicated than we thought."

    Scientists aren't sure if the Gigantoraptor was an herbivore or a carnivore. The dinosaur seems to have the characteristics of both. Like most plant eaters, the Gigantoraptor had a small head and long neck. Like most meat eaters, the creature had long, sharp claws.

    The fossil is thought to be from an adult 11-year-old Gigantoraptor. Scientists believe that most Gigantoraptors probably had a lifespan of 18 years.

    Dino Town
    If you want to check out the Gigantoraptor, plan a trip to China's Gobi Desert. Chinese officials are so excited by the new fossils and other dino discoveries there that they're planning to spend $13 million to build a museum. Some people are even calling the region "Dino Town"!


    How much do you know about dinosaurs? Take this fun quiz to find out!


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