“This is a tremendously important fossil. Paleontologists have been waiting for a gigantic feathered theropod to turn up for some time,” says Lindsay Zanno from the Field Museum. Larry Witmer from Ohio University, agrees. “The big thing is the one-two punch of being huge AND feathered,” he says.

Xu found three skeletons of the new creature in China’s Liaoning Province. Judging by the size and the state of their bones, one of them was an adult, and the others were a decade or so younger. Except for one missing tail, they are almost complete, and in very good condition. That alone is cause for celebration. Dinosaur-hunters are often forced to describe new species based on tantalising fragments from a