'Like nothing seen in nature before': strange dinosaur has scientists enthralled [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

The highly unusual Ubirajara jubatus boasted a mane of ‘hair-like structions’ and two ‘ribbon-like features’, researchers say

Reuters
Tue 15 Dec 2020 18.35 EST

About 110 million years ago along the shores of an ancient lagoon in what is now north-eastern Brazil, a two-legged, chicken-sized Cretaceous period dinosaur made a living hunting insects and perhaps small vertebrates like frogs and lizards.

On the inside, it was ordinary, with a skeleton similar to many small dinosaurs from the preceding Jurassic Period, scientists said on Tuesday. On the outside, it was anything but.

This dinosaur, called Ubirajara jubatus, possessed a mane of hair-like structures while also boasting two utterly unique, stiff, ribbon-like features probably made of keratin – the same substance that makes up hair and fingernails – protruding from its shoulders.

“There are plenty of other strange dinosaurs, but this one is unlike any of them,” said David Martill, a paleobiology professor at the University of Portsmouth in England, who helped lead the study, published in the journal Cretaceous Research.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/15/dinosaur-hair-feathers-man-ribbon-cretaceous

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