Have you watched Jurassic park at least a dozen times? Do you think that you know everything there is to know about velociraptor dinosaurs? If so, you may be surprised at this new finding from a fossil found in Asia’s Gobi Desert. When scientists took a closer look at the bones of this predator dinosaur, they found small raised bumps on some of them. What were these bumps for? They seemed very familiar. In fact, they are found on the bones of many modern relatives of dinosaurs—birds! The bumps, also known as quill bumps, occurs where feathers are connected to the bone. This means that the velociraptors the scientists were studying had feathers!

Were velociraptors covered with feathers? Probably not. The bones with the quill bumps on them were found in the arms of the dinosaurs. They had about 14 large feathers on the forward part of each arm. But this is the first time evidence of feathers has been found on a dinosaur this big. Velociraptors are about 1.5 meters long. Other dinosaurs with feathers were way smaller in size!

Did they use the feathers to fly? Not likely, because velociraptors were just too heavy for that. But scientists think the feathers may still have been useful. They may have helped the dinosaurs jump higher. Or they could have been protective. The dinosaurs may have used them to hide their eggs from predators or keep them cool in the hot sun. Who knew you could learn so much from an old set of bumpy bones?