A dinosaur with a beautiful plumage on its head has been discovered , showing us that iridescent feather go a farsighted way back in history .
NamedCaihong juji , which means “ rainbow with the big crest ” in Mandarin , the beast lived 161 million years ago during the Jurassic Period and was found in northeasterly China . It was about the size of a duck and had a bony tip on its question .
A study describing the creature is published inNature Communications . In it , an international team of scientists see fossilised feathers from the creature that were found by a Fannie Farmer in northeastern China .
“ When you look at the fossil record , you ordinarily only see grueling parts like osseous tissue , but every once in a while , soft parts like feathers are maintain , and you get a coup d’oeil into the past times , ” said Chad Eliason , a postdoctoral researcher at The Field Museum and one of the study ’s author , in a statement .
“ The preservation of this dinosaur is incredible , we were really aroused when we realise the level of item we were able to see on the feathers . ”
Studying the feature of speech under a microscope , the squad were able to see parts of cells that contain pigment , know as melanosomes . Although the pigment was mostly move , the chassis of the melanosomes was enough for the investigator to knead out the semblance of the brute ’s feathers .
They found thatCaihongwas most like to modern hummingbirds , with a mix of blue , green , and icteric - Orange River feathers beautify its head . Its feathers were also found to be asymmetric , a trait that allows modernistic birds to steer while flying . Caihongwas flightless , though , so it likely just used its feathers and gloss to keep lovesome and attract mates .
It was also establish to have a skull like a velociraptor while its physical structure was similar to that of birds , traits associated with much earlier species of dinosaur . Julia Clarke , a co - author of the study from the University of Texas at Austin , said this was “ rather strange ” .
This points towards something call mosaic development , an estimation that unlike trait can evolve separately . This puppet may assure us more about how dissimilar features evolve over time . And it give us a coloured panorama of what the world may have look like 161 million years ago .
