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SinosauropteryxSinosauropteryx is a recently discovered feathered dinosaur. It lived in China during the Cretaceous period and is related to Compsognathus. It was around 3 feet long, most of which was taken up by its extremely long tail. The remarkably well-preserved fossils show that Sinosauropteryx was covered with a furry down of very simple feathers. Sinosauropteryx is important because it appears to have had feathers, and yet was not very closely related to birds. There are many dinosaur families that were more closely related to birds than Sinosauropteryx, including the deinonychosaurs, the oviraptosaurs and therizinosaurs. This indicates that feathers may have been a characteristic of many theropod dinosaurs, not just the obviously bird-like ones, making it quite possible that equally distant animals such asOrnitholestes, Coelurus and even Tyrannosaurus rex may have had feathers.
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