Juravenator
Juravenator is a genus of small (75 cm long) coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur (although a 2020 study proposed it to be a hatchling megalosauroid[1]), which lived in the area which would someday become the top of the Franconian Jura of Germany, about 151 or 152 million years ago. It is known from a single, juvenile specimen.
Juravenator was a small bipedal predator. The holotype of Juravenator represents a juvenile individual, about seventy-five centimetres in length. In 2006 and 2010 Göhlich established some diagnostic traits. The four teeth of the premaxilla in the front of the snout had serrations on the upper third of the back edge of the tooth crown. Between the tooth row of the premaxilla and that of the maxilla there was no hiatus. The maxillary teeth were few in number, eight with the holotype. The depression or fossa for the large skull opening, the fenestra antorbitalis, was long and extended far to the front. The humerus was relatively short. The claws of the hand were high at their bases and suddenly narrowed transversely in the middle. The zygapophyses in the middle of the tail were bow-shaped.[2][3]
Juravenator was originally classified as a member of the Compsognathidae, making it a close relative of Compsognathus, which preserved evidence of scales on the tail of one specimen, but also of Sinosauropteryx and Sinocalliopteryx, for which there is fossil evidence of a downy, feather-like covering.[2] However, a patch of fossilized Juravenator skin (from the tail, between the eighth and twenty-second vertebra, and lower hind leg) shows primarily normal dinosaur scales, as well as traces of what may be simple feathers.[4] Paleontologist Xu Xing, in his comments on the find in the journal Nature, initially suggested that the presence of scales on the tail of Juravenator could mean that the feather coat of early feathered dinosaurs was more variable than seen in modern birds. Xu also questioned the interpretation of Juravenator as a compsognathid, suggesting the extensive scaly hide could be a primitive trait. Xu considered it most likely that Juravenator and other primitive feathered dinosaurs simply possessed more extensive scales on their bodies than modern birds, which retain scales only on the feet and lower legs.[5]
Xu's interpretation was supported by further study of the Juravenator fossil. The first follow-up study to the initial description reported that faint impressions of filamentous structures, possibly primitive feathers, were present along the top of the tail and hips.[4] A more in-depth study, published in 2010, included an examination of the specimen under ultra-violet light by Helmut Tischlinger. The examination under UV revealed a more extensive covering of filament-like structures, similar in anatomy to the primitive feathers of other compsognathids, including Sinosauropteryx. The investigation also discovered additional patches of soft tissue, on the snout and the lower leg, and vertical collagen fibres between the chevrons of the tail vertebrae.[3]
Foth et al. (2020) reinterpreted purported scales preserved with the holotype specimen of J. starki as remains of adipocere, possibly indicating the presence of a fat body.[1]
