( Reuters ) - The vicious little dinosaur Velociraptor was a feathered fiend, according to scientists who found evidence of quills on this well-known meat-eater's forearm.
In research published on Thursday, paleontologists said a forearm bone of Velociraptor found in Mongolia's desolate Gobi desert retained structures, or quill knobs, where a series of feathers were anchored to the bone with ligaments.
No actual fossils of the feathers were found, but the researchers said quill knobs would not exist without feathers. They are present in many bird species alive today.
The researchers said the discovery is a further indication that many carnivorous dinosaurs, and not just the very smallest, possessed feathers. They added that the presence of feathers, which among other qualities provide insulation, was another sign that these may have been warm-blooded animals.
"If a person saw a Velociraptor today, they would say, 'What the heck is that? It's some really weird bird,'" Alan Turner of at the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University in New York, said in a telephone interview.
Scientists have found, particularly at one site in China, fossils of small carnivorous dinosaurs and others preserved with feathers. Some scientists think larger predators, perhaps even Tyrannosaurus rex, may have had feathers or downy "protofeathers," at least as juveniles.
This Velociraptor's remains date back 80 million years to the Cretaceous Period and were uncovered in 1998, the researchers report in the journal Science.