These newly discovered raptors were like feather-covered cheetahs

Besides the feathers the tail was flexible enough to offset the weight shift when making hard turns and running down pray . They were 6 to 7 feet long and weighed 50 to 70 pounds so they were not that big but nevertheless picture a pack of wild dogs today chancing down pray or after your butt...not a nice thought IMO.

Interesting find IMO as I have long held the belief that many of the dinos/raptors were more bird like than was believed when I was a child.

Little bumps known as quill knobs indicate that the animal had large forearm feathers as well as feathers throughout its body. The researchers also examined attachment sites for muscles in its upper arms, hands, and feet,

“The difference with Dineobellator is the base of the tail close to the hips was highly mobile, which means it could move around very quickly,” Jasinski says.

In this way, Dineobellator might have resembled present-day cheetahs, which can change direction mid-dash by quickly flipping their tails around while keeping them stiff enough to counterbalance their movements. “It suggests that Dineobellator would have been not only very fast but also highly agile and a really good pursuit predator,” Jasinski says.

www.popsci.com...

a reply to: 727Sky

i want a pack - trained to attack on command

a reply to: 727Sky

Interesting find IMO as I have long held the belief that many of the dinos/raptors were more bird like than was believed when I was a child.

i cannot find it now - but i once had an interesting link to a gallery of "illustrations of brids " - as drwan by someone who just looked at a skeleton - and was not aware it was a bird

my problem with the birds >> dinosaurs argument = teeth and jaw

yes there are lots of links dino > birds

but is more parralel than linear - IMHO

originally posted by: ignorant_ape

but is more parralel than linear - IMHO

And you are correct. Birds evolved from a branch in the dinosaur evolutionary tree. Their predecessors, like the velociraptor, coexisted with other dinosaurs until the extinction. Their smaller size and greater variation is what helped them survive it and evolve to nowadays birds.

a reply to: 727Sky

Thank hollywood science, i'm not going to point fingers *cough cough Jurassic park cough*

We have known for years that velociraptors were the size of large cats and had feathers, not huge predators, we all know that most dinosaurs in Jurassic park were in the cretaceous period, which is why the movie should be called cretaceous park.

And don't get me started on Deep Impact-even Morgan Freeman couldn't save that movie, haven't they heard of the KT boundary? all you Ross Gellers would know about dragons-sorry that was Phoebe.

a reply to: 727Sky

BS.