The fossil is believed to be the first discovered with its entire body covering intact. It is adorned with a mixture of down and branching filaments that left the signature herringbone imprint of feathers, a Chinese and American team report in Thursday's Nature . The discovery strengthens arguments made by a majority of paleontologists that the origin of feathers predated the origin of flight and that feathers evolved on dinosaurs before the first birds appeared in the Earth's prehistoric skies. Children have been taught for at least the past century that feathers evolved on birds for the purpose of flight.
Dromaeosaurs belong to the family of meat-eating dinosaurs known as therapods.
The new creature was two to three feet long and was buried in the low-oxygen silty sediments of an ancient pond. The sediments are dated at more than 130 million years old. The fossil has the razor claw found on the middle digits of all raptors and sharp, flesh-ripping teeth. Based on its skeleton, the creature would not have been able to fly, but it has some skeletal features similar to a modern bird, Norell says. The fossil is from a rich deposit located in the Liaoning Province of northeastern China.