Scientists have questioned operanet t-Rex
New paleontological casts of the skin of a Tyrannosaurus Rex do not show signs of feathers. The authors findings put forward the idea that the largest dinosaurs from the group of theropod more like modern reptiles than birds, despite the presence of feathered relatives.
An article with the results published in the journal Biology Letters.
Science has firmly established that many dinosaurs had feathers, although the “plume” of these ancient organisms are very rarely preserved in the geological record. A lucky find was the discovery of preserved in amber fragment feathered tail of a lizard, which became known at the end of last year. Primitive plumage was detected and some representatives of the group of tyrannosaurids.
In the new work describes the discovery of fossilized traces of the outer integument of Tyrannosaurus Rex and several other members of the family tyrannosaurids, such as albertosaurus, daspletosaurus, gorgosaurus, and tarbosaurus. The skin of all of these giant lizards were scaly, like reptiles. However, it should be noted that a new job is unlikely to put an end to the dispute about the presence of feathers at the very well-known dinosaur because of the small likelihood of their preservation.
The team of authors under the leadership of Phil bell from Australia’s University of New England, put forward a hypothesis to explain the lack of feathers in Tyrannosaurus Rex and its relatives. According to her, the giant lizards lost them useless, that can be compared with the reduction of hairline at the African elephants that was associated with fewer problems with thermoregulation in large animals.