Guanlong wucaii
UPDATE! Originally published on December 12, 2012, this was AntiquityNOW’s first blog post! The dinosaur/avian connection is back in the news today with the announcement that Australia will be the first country to publicly display specimens of Guanlong wucaii, a relative of Tyrannosaurus rex that helped confirm the link between dinosaurs and birds. The Guanlong wucaii is the T-Rex’s oldest relative living around 90 million years before its gigantic relative. Unlike the more famous T-Rex, the Guanlong wucaii much more closely resembled our modern day birds as its body was covered in feather-like structures. Stephen Wroe, associate professor at University of New England and a palaeontologist, said, “It might be hard to imagine how Tyrannosaurus, with its huge size and famously tiny arms, could be related to birds. But Guanlong demonstrates earlier relatives of Tyrannosaurus were much more avian – more lightly built and with longer forelimbs.”[1] Continue reading
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