Insofar as there's a firm dividing line between 'feathered avian dinosaur' and 'feathered non-avian dinosaur', the presence of a flexible bony tail is it. (That and teeth, I guess, and maybe hand-claws.) This is something the size of a small bird which could swish its tail from side to side. Awesome.

It's also one of the very few Mesozoic dinosaurs we have colour information for; this shows most of the state of the art from last year. And it's not black! It's a lovely chestnut on top and white underneath.

The feathers themselves are apparently arranged as a fan down either side of the tail, like we see on Anchiornis and Microraptor specimens and in pictures; nice little confirmation that that's not a preservation artefact. And you can see for yourself that it's superfloof. I wonder whether this was from an adult (which would I think be among the smallest Mesozoic dinosaurs attested) or a juvenile? The paper suggests juvenile, based I think solely on it being small.

The paleoart showing up attached to the story is very nice-looking, too (though it's not from the paper, and I don't think it was made for this story; not sure though).

All in all: yay!

hS