The Yutyrannus, described in 2012, are the largest known dinosaurs with feathers—a patch of fossilized skin shows shaggy body feathers, similar to an Emu. Yutyrannus was related to T. rex and measured 30 feet long and weighed more than 3,000 pounds.” Illustration by Brian Choo. That’s the scientific definition. Let me try to break it down for you (no pun intended) in simple words. Ok, so here’s the-big-idea. Collagen is a protein and proteins are important because they tell us a lot about an organism. Yes, you’ve read that right! Apparently, someone has come up with the hilarious idea of giving these farm fowls a pair of dinosaur arms. Although this might come as a surprise to many, several studies have actually confirmed the kinship between T-Rex and birds. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the mighty predator shared more of its genetic makeup with birds than with reptiles. Paleontologists have long debated this. A string of studies in the past decade have pointed to the potential widespread presence of either feathers or fuzz-like proto-feathers in dinosaur species. In 2012, paleontologists found that a T. rex relative, Yutyrannus huali, had filamentous feathers. If a relative had feathers, why not the king of reptiles itself?

This is because paleontologists have determined that dinosaurs are more like birds than any other animal. Collagen is the main component of connective tissue and one of the most abundant proteins in living animals. But wait. There’s more. Horner as revealed that he has already found the gene that ‘turns on’ teeth.That’s why this collagen find is so important. We can’t clone a Dino from collagen but we sure can learn a lot. In fact, we can learn more from proteins than we could from DNA anyway. Until a specimen is found with preserved imprints of feathers, though, the jury is out. “We have some opportunity to know if they had feathers because we can find impressions,” says Matthew Carrano, curator of dinosaurs at the National Museum of Natural History. “But it’s highly unlikely that we will ever know its color or the texture of its skin.” Oh, I just thought of something. If that is true, then it also answers a few age-old questions. Like:

Studying changes in proteins can actually give us more insights about evolution than just looking at the DNA. Proteins can yield clues about the age of a sample or about the environment in which an animal lived or was buried. Schweitzer Chance of an answer: Not out of the realm of possibility. “I think with the new methods of muscle reconstruction and 3D modeling out there, we will definitely narrow down the possibilities of uses for the forelimb,” says Burch. The Nation’s T. rex contains one of most complete forelimbs in the fossil record. “That could lead us to something,” says Carrano.

Your chickens can now join your cosplaying lifestyle by becoming a mini T-Rex!

Finally, In 2011, samples of amber from the Cretaceous era were discovered that contained preserved feathers. This led paleontologist to conclude that “some of the feathers were used for insulation, and not flight.” In June of last year, the Smithsonian reached an agreement with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the skeleton is on loan to the Smithsonian for the next 50 years. At 80 to 85 percent of a full T. rex skeleton, the Wankel T. rex is among the most complete fossils of its kind unearthed, second only to the Chicago Field Museum’s “Sue,” which the Smithsonian tried to acquire in 1997. Beyond these stunning skeletal displays, paleontologists have found some 50 T. rex specimens, since Henry Fairfield Osborn first described the species in 1905. Chance of an answer: Nil. The only thing that would prove it is a Mesozoic-era recording of the creature. Or, remembering all the warning of Dr. Malcom in the Jurassic Park series, it could just go horribly bad.

The king of reptiles, though mighty and well documented in the fossil record, remains largely a mystery to paleontologists who have yet to understand the creature’s basic lifestyle and biology. We've culled scientific reports to bring you five questions that have yet to be answered: Once Horner got his T. rex home, Mary H. Schweitzer of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences found some soft-tissue preserved inside the T. rex bone. These results match predictions made from skeletal anatomy, providing the first molecular evidence for the evolutionary relationships of a non-avian dinosaur.” Chris Organ

As far as current theories go, the idea that T. rex’s forelimbs are in fact totally useless is growing in popularity, says Sara Burch, a paleontologist at Ohio University. But Burch isn’t convinced and is trying to reconstruct the muscle layout of T. rex’s forelimbs based on the forelimb muscles of its modern relatives and the shape of the bones. Dino bones look like bird bones. Just by simply looking at the bones we have today you can easily see that they look more like birds than any other animal. This, is actually, the first thing that led researchers to come to believe that dinosaurs were closely related to birds. The mysterious function of T. rex’s short arms has provided an endless source of amusement on the internet. But scientists too have been perplexed by the dichotomy of such a large animal with such tiny, seemingly useless forelimbs. Similar to the initial idea that T. rex used its arms to hold its mate, some have suggested that the arms kept prey in place—a study from 1990 hypothesized that the arms could maneuver at least 400 pounds—or provided lift when the animal stood up on two legs, assuming the animals ever sat on the ground.

When paleontologists found the Archaeopteryx they finally had a well-preserved fossil that showed only slight differences between Archaeopteryx and theropods. A reconstruction of the two Tyrannosaurus rex caught in the act of mating at the Jurassic Museum of Asturias in Spain. When he said, “We’re not going to be able to make a dinosaur based on a dinosaur.” he meant we can’t take DNA from a mosquito and even fossils and then ‘make’ a dinosaur.

Scientists don’t know if T. rex was totally warm blooded or cold blooded, but they think that the giant’s metabolic rate was probably somewhere in between that of crocodiles and birds. A study published last year in PLOS One suggests that cold blooded energetics could not have fueled dinosaurs’ active lifestyles, and thus they probably didn’t regulate their body temperature exclusively by moving into the sun, as modern lizards and crocodiles are known do. If the PLOS One study is true, it is even more likely that newborns had feathers. Chance of an answer? It’s looking more and more likely that T. rex had feathers, but coloration and skin texture remain unknown, for now. The 2nd evidence is feathers. Over the years you may have noticed that there have been more and more pictures of dinosaurs with feathers. Our traditional ideas about what Velociraptors, or even the T-Rex, looked like are now shifting from reptile-like to bird-like. All seriousness aside, I think the next 10 years are going to be very interesting in the world of dinosaurs. At least there is a sense of hope, a glimmer of light, that promises to answer many many more questions about dinosaurs.