A new dinosaur is ruffling a few feathers in the ongoing debate over when and why dinosaurs evolved plumage — and which dinosaurs were rocking the feathered look.Feathers have been associated with several dinosaurs directly ancestral to birds. Additional studies have determined that some non-avian theropod dinosaurs — not directly ancestral to birds but still closely related — also had various types of plumage. Based on an older dinosaur not related to birds that was recently unearthed in Siberia, however, researchers believe many more dinosaurs — possibly all or most of them — had feathers. The newly described Siberian dinosaur, Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus, also helps paleontologists understand why feathers evolved at all.Researchers described K. zabaikalicus for the first time today in Sciencebased on hundreds of fossils, including six partial skulls, from two sites in Russia. The animal belongs to the Ornithischian order of dinosaurs and is several branches away from birds on the Dinosauria family tree. Fossil finds dated from the Middle to Late Jurassic, roughly 176-145 million years ago.
