STL Science Center

STL Science Center

06 October 2017

The Angry Squirrel Dinosaur

©Robinson Kunz
The vast majority of illustrations of Sciurumimus that we have looked at this week have portrayed this small coelurosaur as a very fuzzy and, honestly, a cuddly looking ball of adorable dinosaur. The truth is more than likely a lot less fuzzy and cute and a lot more predatory and periodically violent. The most realistic illustrations take into account the fact that Sciurumimus was a living, breathing, and hunting dinosaur that ate meat. This makes all of the feathery fuzziness on the caudal end of the animal a little more interesting, in my opinion. This feather covering would have kept Sciurumimus warm in cold times and, if the feathers were as short as they appear to be, would not be as well suited to being used for signalling as some other feathered dinosaurs' integumentary structures. The rostral portion of this particular Sciurumimus is all business and certainly predatory. The head is very much that of a predatory theropod and leaves very little question to the idea that this dinosaur was capable of hunting animals and making a meal of them.

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