Huadanosaurus sinensis

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Time: Early Cretaceous (~124 million years ago)

Region: Liaoning Province, China

Formation: Yixian Formation, Jehol Biota

Coloration Data

The dinosaur's body was covered in filamentous plumage. Its tail featured alternating light (likely white) and dark bands, with the dark sections exhibiting a chestnut or reddish-brown coloration. The coloration of the remainder of the body is not conclusively known, though it was likely dominated by similar rufous tones.

Method: Scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Publications

• Fucheng Zhang, Stuart L. Kearns, Patrick J. Orr, Michael J. Benton, Zhonghe Zhou, Diane Johnson, Xing Xu, Xiaolin Wang (2010)
  An article from the journal Nature describing Huadanosaurus (here it is referred to as Sinosauropteryx, which was corrected in subsequent works), Sinornithosaurus, and Confuciusornis.
• Rui Qiu, Xiaolin Wang, Shunxing Jiang, Jin Meng, Zhonghe Zhou (2025)
  An article defining specimen IVPP V14202 as the holotype of Huadanosaurus sinensis.

Documents and files

• Qiu_et_al_2025.pdf (PDF)
  Description of Huadanosaurus sinensis, previously referred to the genus Sinosauropteryx.

Reconstructions

Fossils

Size comparison