Sinornithosaurus millenii
"Millennium Chinese bird-lizard"

Described in late 1999, Sinornithosaurus lived up to its name, ushering in the 21st century with a bang. Notable for being the first dromaeosaur ("'raptor") to be found with feather impressions, this fuzzy creature finally proved the "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs inaccurate, and it's suite of advanced birdlike features helped along the theory that dromaeosaurs were secondarily flightless. The first Sinornithosaurus specimens were disarticulated, but the specimen known as "Dave" (which is most likely a juvenile of the genus) gave us a stunning, well preserved image of these animals, modern feathers and all. Sinornithosaurus was small, about 4ft (1m) long, and like other Yixian fauna, lived in the Early Cretaceous of China.

The plumage in the reconstruction is based mostly on the arrangement seen on Dave - long tail feathers that appear to taper near the tip (unlike other dromaeosaurs that sport a plume or fan), well-developed secondary feathers on the arm, and the strange flight feathers stemming from the leg seen on Dave and other dromaeosaurs. I've reconstructed Sinornithosarus additionally with primary feathers (those that stem from the middle finger of the hand). Dave doesn't have primaries preserved, but my guess is this is an artifact of preservation or preparation, as other dromaeosaurs (the puff-tail, Cryptovolans) hand rather long primary feathers. The animal Sinornithosaurus is depicted killing here is a young, indeterminate therizinosaur.