NEW YORK, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Ancestors of the mighty predator of the age of dis, the Tyrannosaurus rex, may once have had something close to feathers, a study says.
Fossils of the earliest known T. rex have been discovered with clear impressions of downy feathers from head to tail, the New York Times said.
In a report in Nature, the discovery team announced the 130 million-year-old fossils from northeastern China provided the first direct evidence tyrannosaurs had protofeathers, the precursors of feathers now found on birds.
It further supported the hypothesis that some dinosaurs grew a feathery covering to help keep warm.
The primitive species, based on remains of two specimens, is a 5-foot-long dinosaur named Dilong paradoxus.
Over the past eight years, paleontologists have excavated dozens of dinosaurs that bore traces of featherlike structures.
Researchers said it probably would be an exaggeration to suggest the much larger T. rex, which lived toward the end of the age of dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, was covered in feathers but they could have had protofeathers until they reached maturity.
