The dinosaur had characteristics “Like nothing seen in nature”

(Newser)
– How bizarre were the features of a dinosaur that roamed modern Brazil about 110 million years ago? I’m “like nothing I’ve seen in nature,” says David Martill, lead author of a study of the creature. guardian. “There are a lot of other weird dinosaurs, but it doesn’t look like any of them.” The beaked dinosaur was about the size of a chicken, with two legs and a long tail, wearing a mane of protective feathers, a form of early feathers that could look like hair. Stranger is still “the presence of two very long ribbons, probably stiff on both sides of the shoulders,” Martill said in a statement. These protrusions – probably made of keratin, the same material as the nails – borrow the name of the dinosaur, Ubirajara jubatus. The first part comes from a name Tupi for “master of the spear”, while the second refers to a Latin term for “man”, according to Science News.

Martill expects the dino to “have hair-like protopenes on much of his body … the ones on his back are very long and give him a kind of mane that is unique to dinosaurs.” Probably the dinosaur could have lifted the displayed mane. The shoulder protrusions would have been added to the show, which could have involved “elaborate dancing”, either to attract colleagues or to intimidate rivals, say the researchers, who assume the analyzed specimen is male. This specimen was brought to a museum in Brazil about 30 years ago; In 1995, Martill and a colleague requested that he be sent to Germany, where he has been studying ever since. “It represents a revolution in the communication of dinosaurs, the effects of which we can still see today in living birds,” such as peacocks and birds of paradise, says the study’s co-author, Robert Smyth. Really, “Ubirajara shows us that this tendency to show is “inherited” from dinosaurs. (Read more stories about dinosaurs.)

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