Dinosaurs had feathers? Beth Tyler 06.01.01 Archaeologists working in China found evidence for feathered dinosaurs. They found the outline of a dinosaur preserved in rock (like a handprint in concrete). While they didn’t actually find feathers, there were marks around the preserved dinosaur that looked exactly like the marks a feather would have left. Some dinosaurs could fly, but scientists identified this particular dinosaur as one incapable of flying. Many scientists thought that feathers developed to help birds fly. However, the evidence from this dinosaur might mean that feathers did not originally develop for the purpose of flying. Qiang, Ji, Mark A. Norell, Ke-Qin Gao, Shu-An Ji, and Dong Ren. 2001. The distribution of integumentary structures in a feathered dinosaur. Nature 410:1084- 1088. ©2001 The Aurora Collection, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Site Development by: Interactive Multimedia. Inc.