JIANIANHUALONG

China's Early Cretaceous-aged Jehol Group has yielded spectacular specimens of theropod dinosaurs, including many fossils of troodontids, which, along with dromaeosaurids, are considered to be the closest relatives of birds. As such, direct evidence for the prescence of feathers on the Chinese troodontids Jinfengopteryx, Xiaotingia and Eosinopteryx was expected, as was the dismissal of their integument as nothing but degraded collagen fibres by the Birds Are Not Dinosaurs squad. Recently, even several right-minded palaeontologists began to have their doubts: not about the presence of feathers but of the troodontid affinities of those three species. But right on cue, along came Jianianhualong from the Yixian Formation at Baicai Gou with large asymetrical feathers on the forelimbs, hindlimbs and tail, arranged in a similar fashion to those seen on the dromaeosaurid Microraptor and the "first bird" Archaeopteryx, and strutted its way straight to Troodontidae on the theropod branch of the dinosaurian family tree, flipping the bird at BANDits on the way.