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back to article MICRORAPTOR dino-pigeon lured mates with glowing feathers

It would have picked holes in your eyeballs if it got its little claws on your face, but it might have glowed prettily just before it did. Scientists from Beijing and the US have discovered that the pigeon-sized Microraptor dinosaur would have had nice shiny feathers after painstakingly analysing a fossil found in Northern …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Contraversial

    "lured the ladies... and gents."

    Are you saying they were bisexual?

    'Cos bright colours are pretty but lets not jump to conclusions.

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  2. jonathan keith
    Boffin

    Just to say...

    ... I love science. Go, boffins.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Iridescence isn't the same as luminescence (glowing).

    But I still think velociraptors look wrong with feathers whatever the fossils say.

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    1. Fibbles
      Reply Icon

      They look wrong to me if they're not pictured as 6ft tall. Spielberg has a lot to answer for...

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      1. laird cummings
        Reply Icon

        Then it's Utahraptor you'll be wanting - just perfectly sized for Spielbergian expectations.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The BIRDS - 70million years BC

    Who wants to make the Prequal to Hitchcocks classic.

    where flocks of carnivorous birds mob and devour the local fauna...

    looks like the Corvids are more advanced than we thought, with 60+million years headstart on us.

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    1. Jeebus
      Reply Icon

      Re: The BIRDS - 70million years BC

      If I may borrow a line from the Heavy. "I have yet to meet bird who outsmart bullet".

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  5. PJ 3

    Right..

    "However iridescence is only a quality that is useful to creatures active in the day,"

    Yeah, moonlight does nothing on iridescent surfaces and all creatures had/have visual spectrums just like humans...

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  6. SYNTAX__ERROR
    FAIL

    Poor title...

    What Mike said. Iridescent does not mean glowing.

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Iridescent

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  7. P. Lee
    Linux

    Raptors with feathers.

    That would be a bird of prey then.

    Falcons are cool, even if they aren't six feet tall. Probably because they aren't six feet tall. Has anyone thought about the physics involved if T-Rex tripped and fell? I'm not surprised they're all dead.

    Tux - Windows Raptor.

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