REDISCOVERING THE DINOSAURS

They're often depicted as huge, scaly beasts, but new discoveries are changing our beliefs about the creatures that once stalked our planet

- DARREN NAISH

VELOCIRAPTOR

One of Jurassic Park's stars was more chicken-like than reptilian

Most people associate the Cretaceous Velociraptor with its appearance in the blockbuster Jurassic Park. In the film, the Velociraptor is a human-sized, scaly predator that's able to open doors with its flexible, down-turned hands, looking somewhat like a bipedal Komodo dragon. In reality, Velociraptor probably didn't look much like this at all. Recent research shows Velociraptor was considerably smaller, less than a metre tall and under 20 kilograms in weight, with its hands fixed into a palms-inward posture just like that present in birds today.

The key difference in its appearance, however, was the presence of plumage. Thanks to numerous beautifully preserved fossils discovered in the Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks of eastern China, we now know beyond doubt that many dinosaurs, including the Velociraptor, were feathered. And they didn't just possess a few sparse tufts or filaments here and there - they were covered in a thick, extensive coat, just like modern birds.

Long feathers covered their arms and hands, obscuring the clawed fingers from view, and the feathering also extended down the legs to the ankles. The face and much of the snout and jaws were festooned in fuzz, while the entire neck, body and tail were thickly covered. In fact, Velociraptor and related dinosaurs must have looked like ground-striding, short-winged hawks rather than the scaly lizard-monsters made famous by Steven Spielberg.

ORNITHOMIMUS

Superbly preserved specimens suggest these dinosaurs resembled ostriches