Raynas Question

Rayna sent me this dinosaur article and she asked me a question about the feathers it had so I'll try my best to explain it.
Fossil remains have been found in China of the oldest and smallest ancestor to the T.rex, he was given the name Dilong paradoxus, meaning "surprising dragon", i'm just going to call him Dilong. Both specimens that were found, have what seem to be proto feathers that covered the body.
So Rayna asked how can this t.rex line start with feathers and end with the non-feathered T.rex while the new idea is that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
Ok, what the Diong has is called Proto feathers. They are the early stages of feathers, all they would be used for is insulation. Since the Dilong that were found ranged in the 5 foot region, smaller bodies could have used these proto feathers for a sourse of warmth. As time went on, dinosaurs got bigger along with our t.rex line. Proto feathers were no longer used because by the time they had gotten to T.rex size they actually wanted to get rid of heat so they evolved the scaley skin. Some people thing that T.rexs young may have had a feather coating to keep warm.
Now there were other dinosaurs that are thought to have had feathers, a new idea is that some of the raptors had feathers on thier bodies if you watch any of the Walking with Dinosaur specials on Discovery Channel, you will see the little guys running around with feathers. Justin told me that it is believed that some of the smaller therapods (meat eaters) may have evolved to birds but that is a huge controversial debate.
So while T.rex evolved away from feathers by growing larger, many others develped feathers which may have lead to the present day bird.
I hope this helped Rayna!