It had feathers and a beak.
It was the size of a donkey, and it did not fly.
It was not a bird, but a dinosaur that was a close relative of birds.
Photo: AFP
照片：法新社
This is how a team of scientists described a fossil of Tongtianlong limosus, a new species in a strange group of dinosaurs that lived during the final 15 million years before dinosaurs died out, in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.
This particular Tongtianlong limosus fossil — meaning “muddy dragon on the road to heaven” — was unearthed four years ago during the construction of a school in the Ganzhou region of Jiangxi province.
The first fragmentary fossils belonging to this group of dinosaurs known as oviraptorosaurs were found nearly a century ago; newly discovered, well preserved specimens are revealing more details about them.
The fossil was found in an unusual posture, its limbs splayed and head raised. The scientists think it had become trapped in a quagmire and had died as it tried to pull itself out.
Oviraptorosaurs are not direct ancestors of birds, but share a common theropod dinosaur ancestor with the lineage that later evolved to birds. Some features like the feathers come from the common ancestor, for display to potential mates or other creatures.
The common ancestor had teeth, though, not beaks.
The six Ganzhou oviraptorosaur species discovered so far are also very different from each other, and the scientists argue that this shows rapid evolution of these dinosaurs.
That runs counter to the assertion of some paleontologists that dinosaurs were already in decline long before they became extinct 66 million years ago, most likely from the global devastation following a large asteroid impact.
This article is an edited version of a piece that originally appeared in the New York Times
(New York Times / Kenneth Chang)
它們有羽毛和喙，和驢子體型相似，無法飛翔。它們不是鳥，而是一種和鳥類相近的恐龍。
在《科技報告》的一篇論文章中，科學家們這樣形容泥潭通天龍化石，它們是最新發現的恐龍品種，生活在距恐龍滅絕一千五百萬年前。
四年前，泥潭通天龍化石在中國江西省贛州地區的一處學校施工工地被發現。
泥潭通天龍所屬的偷蛋龍類化石最早於一個世紀前被發掘；這次發現的泥潭通天龍化石保存完整，為研究偷蛋龍提供了更加豐富的資源。
化石被發現時的姿勢十分獨特，恐龍頭部上抬，前肢伸展開來。科學家們認為它在泥潭中掙扎試圖脫身直至死亡。
偷蛋龍並非鳥類的直接祖先，但是與後來進化成鳥類的恐龍擁有共同的獸腳類恐龍祖先故有不少相似之處，比如說，它們都長有招搖的羽毛。
這兩類恐龍的共同祖先有牙齒，但沒有喙。
目前在贛州被發現的六類偷蛋龍都彼此相異，科學家認為這表明了這些恐龍進化之快。
這一論述與一些古生物學者認為恐龍早在滅絕前就已經數量大幅減少的觀點相悖。大部分科學家認為恐龍滅絕的原因是由於六千六百萬年前的小行星撞擊地球。
本文為編輯後的版本，原文已於紐約時報刊登
（紐約時報）
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