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About 110 million years ago, along the banks of an ancient lagoon in what is now northeastern Brazil, a two-legged, chicken-sized Cretaceous dinosaur made a living by hunting insects and perhaps small vertebrates like frogs and lizards.
Inside, it was normal, with a skeleton similar to that of many small dinosaurs from the earlier Jurassic Period, scientists said Tuesday. On the outside, it was the opposite.
This dinosaur, named Ubirajara jubatus, possessed a mane of hair-like structures while boasting two completely unique, rigid, ribbon-like features, probably made of keratin, the same substance that makes up hair and nails, that protrude from his shoulders.
“There are many other strange dinosaurs, but this one doesn’t look like any of them,” said David Martill, a professor of paleobiology at the University of Portsmouth in England who helped lead the study, published in the journal Cretaceous Research.
The hair-like structures of Ubirajara appear to be a rudimentary form of feathers called proto-feathers. This was not real hair, an exclusively mammalian feature. Many dinosaurs had feathers. In fact, birds evolved from tiny feathered dinosaurs about 150 million years ago.
“It probably looked more hairy than feathery from a distance,” Martill said. “It probably had hair-like proto-feathers on much of its body, but they are only preserved along its neck, back, and arms. Those on the back are very long and give it a kind of mane unique to dinosaurs ”.
Ubirajara’s ribbon-like structures may have been used for display, possibly to attract teammates or intimidate opponents or in male-male rivalry, Martill added. Such displays are often performed by male animals, think of the elaborate tail feathers of a peacock, leading Martill to make an “educated guess” that this Ubirajara individual was male.
“The ribbons that seem to come off the shoulders are unlike anything I’ve ever seen in nature before,” Martill said.
While it’s impossible to tell from the fossil, which made its way to a museum in the state of Ceará in the early 1990s, ScienceNews reported, Martill said Ubirajara may have been colorful.
“I bet so,” he added.
Tutor staff contributed to this report
