Sinosauropteryx

Sinosauropteryx was a small, meat-eating dinosaur. It had a covering of primitive feathers, which were thin and hair-like.

It was the first feathered dinosaur discovered that wasn't directly related to birds.

Another special thing about Sinosauropteryx is that scientists used it to work out a dinosaur's colour pattern for the first time.

Sinosauropteryx was a close relative of another small dinosaur, Compsognathus, which lived in Europe.

A fossil hunter named Li Yumin discovered the first Sinosauropteryx remains in 1996. He sold his fossils to two Chinese science museums.

The National Geological Museum in Beijing and some visiting experts were quick to see the importance of the find. It was another key piece of the puzzle showing the evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and modern birds.

There was some disagreement about Sinosauropteryx's feather-like coating. Some researchers doubted that the fossilised marks really showed feathers. They thought the marks might be fibres of collagen - the protein that makes up muscles, tendons and skin.

Other scientists were able to show that they couldn't be collagen and had to be real, if basic, feathers.

Sinosauropteryx ate small animals. We know this because a tiny lizard was preserved in the stomach of one of the fossil specimens.

Another dinosaur skeleton that experts think might be a Sinosauropteryx has been found with mammal bones in its belly.

One of these prey animals, Zhangheotherium, had platypus-style spurs on its ankles, suggesting it may have been venomous.

Sinosauropteryx lived during the Early Cretaceous Period in what's now northern China.

At that time, the environment was quite cool with an average yearly temperature of around 10 degrees Celsius. The area had lots of trees, particularly conifers, cycads and tree ferns.

Sinosauropteryx lived alongside several other Chinese dinosaurs, including the feathered tyrannosaur Yutyrannus, the long-clawed Beipiaosaurus and the parrot-beaked Psittacosaurus.

From studying the traces of pigments left in fossils, scientists have discovered that Sinosauropteryx was mostly a red-brown colour with alternating dark and light bands on its tail. These bands would have helped to camouflage the little dinosaur - kind of like zebra stripes.

It may also have had a light-coloured stomach. This type of colour pattern - darker on top and lighter underneath - is called countershading. It's common in many animals today.

Countershading makes it so that the shadows on the animal's underside don't look as dark. It helps the creature blend into the background and be less obvious to would-be predators.