DNA analysis may decode how dinosaurs looked

Scientists have decoded the overall DNA structure of popularly known dinosaur species, like the Velociraptor and T-rex, an advance that may help get an accurate picture of what the prehistoric predators actually looked like.

Researchers led by Darren Griffin of the University of Kent in the UK compared the genomes of different species, chiefly birds and turtles.

They extrapolated the likely genome structure of a shared common ancestor of birds and turtles that lived around 260 million years ago -- 20 million years before the dinosaurs first emerged.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, traced how chromosomes changed over evolutionary time from a reptile ancestor to the present day.

The team found that, although the individual chromosomes rearranged their genes internally, this did not occur much at all between the chromosomes.

Birds -- which are themselves living dinosaurs -- have a lot of chromosomes compared to most other species and that is possibly one of the reasons why they are so diverse.

The research suggests that the pattern of chromosomes seen in early emerging dinosaurs and later theropods is similar to that of most birds and, again, may help explain their great diversity.

The discovery suggests that, had scientists had the opportunity to make a chromosome preparation from a theropod dinosaur, it might have looked very similar to that of a modern-day ostrich, duck or chicken.