Eight meters (26 ft) long and standing at twice the height of a man at
the shoulder, the fossil of the feathered but flightless Gigantoraptor
erlianensis was found in the Erlian basin in Inner Mongolia, researchers
wrote in the latest issue of Nature.

The researchers said the dinosaur, discovered in April 2005, weighed
about 1.4 tonnes and lived some 85 million years ago.

According to lines of arrested growth detected on its bones, it died as
a young adult in its 11th year of life.

What was particularly surprising was its sheer size and weight because
most theories point to carnivorous dinosaurs getting smaller as they got
more bird-like.

"It had no teeth and had a beak. Its forelimbs were very long and we
believe it had feathers," Xu Xing at the Chinese Academy of Sciences'
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology & Paleonanthropology said in a
telephone interview.

Through analyzing its skeleton, the researchers believe the
Gigantoraptor shared the same ancestor and belonged to the same family
as the Oviraptor.

With a beak and feathers, the Oviraptor is also bird-like and
flightless, but weighed a mere 1 to 2 kg, Xu said.

Other similar feathered dinosaurs rarely weighed over 40 kg, which means
the Gigantoraptor was about 35 times heavier.

The largest known feathered animal before the Chinese discovery was the
half-tonne Stirton's Thunder Bird, which lived in Australia more than
six million years ago.

"It's a giant dinosaur that looked very much like a bird ... whereas
from what we have known before, bird-like dinosaurs were very, very
small. Large dinosaurs are usually not bird-like. So this Gigantoraptor
was an exception," Xu said.

If the Gigantoraptor had lived to a full-sized adult, it would have been
a lot larger, but Xu could not estimate what that would have been.

However, the researchers believe it had an accelerated growth rate that
was faster than the large North American tyrannosaurs.

SURPRISING DISCOVERY

The scientists had originally thought they had found tyrannosaur bones,
as they were so large.

"It was a very surprising discovery, not at all what we expected," Xu
said later at a news conference in Beijing. "So we spent a lot of time
investigating the fossils which is why it took us so long to announce
the results."

The scientists showed off two huge fossilized bones from the animal, and
a model of its beaked head.

Its feathers were likely for show and for keeping its eggs warm, Xu
added.

"We think it's the largest feathered animal ever to have been
discovered," he said.

It had both herbivorous features -- a small head and long neck -- but
also carnivorous ones -- sharp claws for tearing meat -- and could
likely run fast on its long, powerful legs, the professor said.

"Of course, there's no way of knowing for sure," he added.

Its site of discovery, near Erenhot on the Chinese-Mongolian border, is
known for fossils and calls itself "dinosaur town."

The city of just 100,000 is hoping to leverage this fame to attract
tourists, said its Communist Party chief Zhang Guohua, and will spend
more than 100 million yuan ($13.11 million) on a new dinosaur fossil
museum this year.

$13.11 million on a new dinosaur fossil museum this year? Wow! Good
thing they aren't Americans. They would be drawn and quartered for their
capitalistic moves. Couldn't that much money feed a lot of starving
Chinese children? For every answer, think about how you phrase it, the
hypocrisy of it, and add "Bush did it".
huh:

OK, what was the question??????

________________________________,Bush did it.(insert answer)


Copy and paste, saves a lot of work.

Andrea, it was just a jab at those that think the Chinese are all that
and a bag of chips bt the US is scum. Doesn't seem to have worked
though. Thanks for responding though! At least I have one pal!

Bird flu, do you suppose it was engineered?? Like Aids???

obviously they modeled BigBird on sesame street from this guy...