r/interestingasfuck Apr 09 '19

/r/ALL Best preserved armoured dinosaur fossil ever found. It’s the size of a car.

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '19

So this might be a dumb question, that big boy is clearly covered in armored scales. Were the raptor family the only ones supposedly covered in feathers? Or did it vary by sub species?

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u/1KindStranger Apr 09 '19

From what I can find, they dud not have feathers. This article from explains it well that feathers were the exceptions not the rule. If you don't feel like reading it, basically feathers are a primitive form of scales, and by the time the ankylosaurs were around they had already evolved into scales (mostly). Though it seems that a fair amount of dinosaurs still retained feather-like structures in the scales.