Sinosauropteryx
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{{Taxobox
| color = pink
| name = Sinosauropteryx
| status = Conservation status: Fossil
| image = Amnh29sinosaur.jpg
| image_width = 250px
| image_caption = Model of Sinosauropteryx at
American Museum of Natural History, New York City
| regnum = Animalia
| phylum = Chordata
| classis = Sauropsida
| ordo = Saurischia
| infraordo = Coelurosauria
| familia = Coeluridae
| genus = Sinosauropteryx
| species = S. prima
| binomial = Sinosauropteryx prima
| binomial_authority = Ji Q. & Ji S., 1996
}}
Sinosauropteryx prima ("first Chinese lizard-feather") was the first non-avian dinosaur found with the fossilized impressions of feathers. It lived in China during the Cretaceous period and was closely related to Compsognathus. It was around 1 meter (3 ft) in length, most of which was taken up by its extremely long tail. The remarkably well-preserved fossils show that Sinosauropteryx was covered with a furry down of very simple feathers. These feathers consisted of a simple two-branched structure, similar to the secondarily primitive feathers of the modern kiwi.
Sinosauropteryx is important because it had feather-like structures, yet was not very closely related to true birds. There are many dinosaur families that were more closely related to birds than Sinosauropteryx, including the deinonychosaurs, the oviraptosaurs and therizinosaurs. This indicates that feathers may have been a characteristic of many theropod dinosaurs, not just the obviously bird-like ones, making it possible that equally distant animals such as Ornitholestes, Coelurus, and Compsognathus had feathers as well, although their close proximity to the origin of feathers and the presence of scales on Juravenator and Tyrannosaurus make the distribution of feathers in primitive coelurosaurs extremely difficult to estimate accurately.
Diet
One specimen of Sinosauropteryx (GMV 2124) was found with several mammal jaws in its stomach region. Hurum, Luo & Kielan-Jaworowska (2006) identified these jaws as belonging to the species Zhangheotherium and Sinobaatar, showing that these two mammals were part the Sinosauropteryx diet. Interestingly, Zhangheotherium is known to have had a poisonous spur, like the modern platypus, showing that Sinosauropteryx fed on possibly poisonous mammals.
References
- Chen, P., Dong, Z., Zhen, S. (1998). An exceptionally well-preserved theropod dinosaur from the Yixian Formation of China. Nature, 391, 147-152.
- Hurum, J. O., Z.-x. Luo, & Z. Kielan-Jaworowska (2006). Were mammals originally venomous? Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 51(1):1–11.
- Ji Qiang & Ji Shuan, (1996). On discovery of the earliest bird fossil in China and the origin of birds. Chinese Geology 10 (233): 30-33.de:Sinosauropteryx
es:Sinosauropteryx nl:Sinosauropteryx ja:シノサウロプテリクス sk:Sinosauropteryx