Charig Milner, Alexander Kellner, Paul Sereno, Jack Horner, Octavio Mateus, Luis Chiappe, Xu Xing, Elia Smaniotto "First direct evidence of feathers in a non-coelurosaurian dinosaur (Megalosauroidea, Spinosauridae) and the institution of a new species of a feathered tetanuran, Suchopteryx hispanicus." Acta Palaeontologica Foolonica, 56 (2), sent on the 3rd of January 2012, accepted manuscript on the 1st of April 2012.
Abstract. In the last twenty years, they've been discovered worldwide at least 23 species of dinosaurs with preserved feathers, without counting more problematic specimens referred to ornitischian dinosaurs and a carcharodontosaurian theropod. All of this dinosaurs were coelurosaurian dinosaurs, closely related to birds. We describe a new genus and species of megalosauroid, Suchopteryx hispanicus, from the Las hoyas Formation of the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) that shows without any doubt the presence of feathers in their basal-most form and proofs that the origin of this particular kind of tegument is related to the origin of Dinosauria, if not the entire branch of Avemetatarsalia itself. The holotype consists of a well preserved skull, showing an extended keratinous crest similar to the one present in the pterosaur taxon Tupandactylus imperator (Kellner & Campos, 2007), and some vertebrae. In our phylogenetic analysis, Suchopteryx hispanicus is the sister taxon of Oxalaia quilombensis (Kellner et al., 2011) and shows a well supported synonymy between Baryonyx walkeri (Charig & Milner, 1986) and Suchomimus tenerensis (Sereno et al., 1998). Undescribed spanish specimens referred to Baryonyx walkeri may actually belong to Suchopteryx hispanicus.
Just amazing. Finally our wishes come true.
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