German researchers say they have discovered a fossil of a feathered hatchling that may be the earliest evidence of a plumed, meat-eating dinosaur that was not closely related to birds.

The fossil is believed to belong to a young land-based dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period, some 170 million years ago, according to the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Named Sciurumimus albersdoerferi, in part after its bushy, squirrel-like tail – tree squirrels come from the genusSciurus – it is the “most complete megalosauroid fossil yet,” the study’s authors write.

Megalosauroid is the name for a wide-ranging group of carnivorous dinosaurs that could grow as big as nine metres and weighed up to one tonne.

The fossil, which shows a juvenile dinosaur with its jaws open and tail extending far over its head, was found in a quarry in Bavaria, Germany.

Yutyrannus huali

The hatchling likely had a large skull, shorter hind limbs and smooth skin with feathers covering its entire body.

Earlier this year, palaeontologists in China said they had found a bizarre species of giant feathered dinosaur that weighed as much as a car and was related to theTyrannosaurus rex.

The soil has been dated to around 125 million years ago to the mid-Cretaceous period, at the peak of the dinosaurs’ long reign over the planet.

That new species was named Yutyrannus huali, an amalgam of Latin and Mandarin which means “beautiful feathered tyrant.”