Anatomy ofSinosauropteryx primafrom Liaoning, northeastern China

2001/12/01 by Philip J. Currie, Philip J Currie, Peiji Chen +1 · 172 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Cretaceous #Evolution and Paleontology Studies #Feather #Geology #Ichthyology and Marine Biology #Mesozoic #Paleontology #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Tetrapod (structure) #Yixian Formation

paper · doi:10.1139/e01-050

published in Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 38(12), 1705-1727 (NRC Research Press)

crossref issued 2001/12/01 · crossref published 2001/12/01 · crossref published-print 2001/12/01 · openalex publication_date 2001/12/01 · crossref created 2011/04/23 · crossref deposited 2021/11/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/08/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03

Abstract

A spectacular pair of Sinosauropteryx skeletons from Jurassic–Cretaceous strata of Liaoning in northeastern China attracted worldwide notoriety in 1996 as the first dinosaurs covered with feather-like structures. Sinosauropteryx prima is important not only because of its integument, but also because it is a basal coelurosaur and represents an important stage in theropod evolution that is poorly understood. Coelurosauria, which includes (but is not limited to) dromaeosaurids, ornithomimosaurs, oviraptorosaurs, troodontids, and tyrannosaurids, formed the most important radiation of Cretaceous carnivorous dinosaurs in the Northern Hemisphere. It also includes Aves. Sinosauropteryx prima has a number of characters that were poorly preserved in known specimens of the closely related Compsognathus longipes from Europe. These include the longest tail known for any theropod and a three-fingered hand dominated by the first digit, which is longer and thicker than either of the bones of the forearm. Both specimens have a thick coat of feather-like structures, which seem to be simple branching structures. The claim that one skeleton of Sinosauropteryx has preserved the shape of the liver is unsupportable, if only because the fossil had collapsed into a single plane, which would have distorted any soft, internal organs.

Citations

• Exceptional soft-tissue preservation in a theropod dinosaur from Italy
• Two feathered dinosaurs from northeastern China
• A therizinosauroid dinosaur with integumentary structures from China
• An exceptionally well-preserved theropod dinosaur from the Yixian Formation of China
• The phylogenetic position of the Tyrannosauridae: implications for theropod systematics
• A Primitive Enantiornithine Bird and the Origin of Feathers
• A beaked bird from the Jurassic of China
• The Theropod Ancestry of Birds: New Evidence from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar
• The first 85 million years of avian evolution
• Lung Structure and Ventilation in Theropod Dinosaurs and Early Birds
• Early Adaptive Radiation of Birds: Evidence from Fossils from Northeastern China
• Branched integumental structures in Sinornithosaurus and the origin of feathers

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• An Early Cretaceous heterodontosaurid dinosaur with filamentous integumentary structures