Location : Asia

Beipiaosaurus had the longest feathers of any dinosaur yet found. Classified as a meat-eater, it is thought that these dinosaurs would also have fed on insects a great deal of the time. It is considered a bird-like dinosaur and shared a number of features that are now found on modern birds.

Described in 1999, Beipiaosaurus is one of a few known bird-like dinosaurs. It came from the famous shale quarries of Liaoning, China, which are well known for producing many incredibly detailed fossils of small dinosaurs and birds. Most of the bird/dinosaur relationship studies are conducted on specimens from this quarry, as unique ecological conditions preserved even the soft parts of the animals that died at this site. These unusual conditions allowed for the perfect preservation of feathers.

Beipiaosaurus remains are fragmentary, but they do show that it was bipedal like other therizinosaurs and that it had sharp, curved hand claws and protofeathers .