Preserved in amber, from 100m years back. 1st time ever. In just a few years, we've gone from ''reptile -like skins'', to ''possibly they had feathers'', to direct proof.

I got this off bbc news, but should be on most news sources.

*hums Jurassic Park theme*

I was just this minute reading about this, part of a tail found in amber.
Found in Myanmar the feathers look a bit like ostrich feathers

Over 100 years of book illustrations and sci fi films completely wrong,

Not really. Its been suspected for a while. If you watch Jurassic Park 1 (the 1993 original) nothing had feathers except the bird ones. If you watch Jurassic Park 3 you see feathers sprouting randomly on things. Of course - that feather could be off some kind of ostrich, or bird dinosaur, or dropped by a pterodactyl that was eating another bird.

Does anyone find it amazing they did this in the 1920's?
https://youtu.be/l7vcKwmMzXA?t=1h26m28s

I believe that this would be a good place to indulge my obsession with the archaeopteryx.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Archaeopteryx

It's been known about or suspected by some for over a century but took time to reach the mainstream - in art for example.

http://dinogoss.blogspot.co.uk/2016/...rs-in-art.html

The trouble is that very few fossil sites in the world are able to preserve feathers.

It is now suspected that quills, proto-feathers or feathers were sported by all dinosaur groups.

I love this illustration of feathered ceratopsians (Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum) by the superb Mark Witton for example.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QIoIvGRR_2...s%2BWitton.jpg

They're just decorative tail feathers though, I don't think there's any proof yet that they were feathered all over like birds.

Nice, but would be nicer if the rest of it was found. Then it would be possible to see what amount of the body is covered in feathers.

Take your pick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaur

All of these dinosaurs have been discovered in areas of exceptional preservation, if T. rex (for example) was ever fossilised in a similar place I have absolutely no doubt that it was covered in plumage too.

Feathers decay far more rapidly than bone.

For example Yutyrannus huali was a large (biggest specimen 9 metres) Tyrannosaur found in one of those areas of exceptional fossil preservation I mentioned above (most are in China).

http://img12.deviantart.net/6c0d/i/2...na-d4w13ia.jpg

Phylogenetic bracketing bracketing helps a lot with this as well.

It is funny when you hear about dinosaurs, it's so inconceivable now, and almost unbelievable until you see fossils. It's almost like a house you've lived in your entire life, and you discover there were residents before you. Dinosaurs the first residents of the Earth, we look quite minor residents in comparison.

but where is dinosaur puke, that is what I want to know. How we ever find out what they did on Friday nights?

It's almost incomprehensible that anything has survived from 100 million years ago

To put it in context the first ape ancestors of Homo were swinging in the trees about 7 million years ago and the Himalaya mountains were formed about 15 million years ago.....

100 million years........blimey........

er, .......... didn't trilobites precede dinosaurs ?

The oldest fossils discovered are currently from Greenland and dated to around 3.7 billion years old.

Multicellular life, came very, very late in evolution's history.

http://www.livescience.com/55950-wor...greenland.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.9d95c5939356

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2...limate-change/