page_title: Feathered dinosaur
section_title: Non-avian dinosaur species preserved with evidence of feathers
hierarchical_section_title: Feathered dinosaur / Current knowledge / Non-avian dinosaur species preserved with evidence of feathers
caption_attribution_description: Cast of the holotype specimen of Sinornithosaurus millenii (IVPP V12811), at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
context_page_description: A feathered dinosaur is any species of dinosaur possessing feathers. While this includes all species of birds, recent evidence supports the hypothesis that many, if not all non-avian dinosaur species also possessed feathers in some shape or form. It has been suggested that feathers had originally evolved for the purposes of thermal insulation, as remains their purpose in the down feathers of infant birds today, prior to their eventual modification in birds into structures that support flight.
  Since scientific research began on dinosaurs in the early 1800s, they were generally believed to be closely related to modern reptiles, such as lizards. The word "dinosaur" itself, coined in 1842 by paleontologist Richard Owen, comes from the Greek for "fearsome lizard". This view began to shift during the so-called dinosaur renaissance in scientific research in the late 1960s, and by the mid-1990s significant evidence had emerged that dinosaurs were much more closely related to birds, which descended directly from the theropod group of dinosaurs and are themselves a subgroup within the Dinosauria.
context_section_description: Several non-avian dinosaurs are now known to have been feathered. Direct evidence of feathers exists for several species. In all examples, the evidence described consists of feather impressions, except those genera inferred to have had feathers based on skeletal or chemical evidence, such as the presence of quill knobs (the anchor points for wing feathers on the forelimb) or a pygostyle (the fused vertebrae at the tail tip which often supports large feathers).
caption: Fossil of Sinornithosaurus millenii, the first evidence of feathers in dromaeosaurids
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