The Description Alone

Sciurumimus was sensationalized prior to any description being published that detailed the anatomy or even what the fossil may have looked like. Nearly a year later the description of the fossil was sent for publication and the fossil was officially named and revealed to the world by Rauhut, et al. (2012). That paper is the only substantial paper that has been released concerning the animal to this point, but it is an interesting paper that details how the feathers were observed and described. Specifically, the fossil was observed to possess some interesting integumentary structures and these needed to be seen in greater detail in order to accurately describe them. Filtered ultraviolet light exposed the differences between collagen fibers and feather filaments along the tail of Sciurumimus. The differences, including high resolution images of the collagen fibers and feather filaments, are central to the paper's description of Sciurumimus both anatomically and phylogenetically.