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A new rainbow coloured dinosaur fossil has been discovered                                                               Credit:Velizar Simeonovski, The Field Museum/Reuters

Scientists in China have made a colourful discovery – a bird-like dinosaur with rainbow-coloured feathers.

The fossilised remains were found in the north-east of China and it’s believed to have lived 161 million years ago during the Jurassic Period.It’s been called Caihong juji, which is the mandarin word for ‘rainbow with the big crest’.

When dinosaur experts studied the fossil they could see evidence of brightly-coloured plumage.

Dr Chad Eliason, a bird researcher at The Field Museum in Chicago, said it suggested “a more colourful Jurassic World than we previously imagined!”

When experts examined the preserved feathers under a microscope, they could see tiny imprints of melanosomes – they’re cells that give animals their colour. These dinosaur melanosomes showed similarities with the cells that cause the colourful plumage seen in hummingbirds.

Caihong juji was a two-legged predator similar to a velociraptor and would have probably hunted small mammals and lizards.

Despite the fact that it had feathers, researchers don’t believe it could fly and instead the feathers were more likely have been to attract a mate or to keep itself warm.

The research has been published in Nature Communications.

Source:BBC,UK

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev