Sinosauropteryx, the first feathered dinosaur, is announced

In October 1996 Chinese palaeontologists announced the discovery in the Early Cretaceous rocks of Liaoning province, north-eastern China, of Sinosauropteryx, a turkey-sized, long-tailed dinosaur that was covered in a coat of fine, hair-like filaments, the first dinosaur known to have had feather-like structures. Farmers and scientists subsequently found hundreds of spectacular fossils in the Jehol Biota, including dinosaurs with true feathers on their arms and tails, such as Microraptor and Caudipteryx. The finds proved that birds descended from small feathered theropod dinosaurs, a hypothesis supported earlier by Archaeopteryx, and led to the realisation that many dinosaurs, perhaps even Tyrannosaurus, had feathers.

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