It was built sort of like a biplane, but probably did not fly as well, if at all.
Scientists on Tuesday described a fossil of a strange creature that they say lived in China 125 million years ago and was covered in feathers, which looked like it had two sets of wings and might have been able to glide.
The meat-eating creature, called Changyuraptor yangi, had exceptionally long tail feathers at 30cm in length. It had feather-covered forelimbs akin to wings as well as legs covered in feathers in a way that gave the appearance of a second set of wings.
C yangi is not considered a bird, but rather a very bird-like dinosaur. It illustrates that it is not always easy to tell what is and is not a bird. It measured a bit more than 1.3m and weighed about 4kg.
“If a person saw Changyuraptor, the reaction likely would be: ‘Hey! That is a weird-looking bird,’” said paleontologist Alan Turner of Stony Brook University in New York, one of the researchers. “So, think a mid-sized turkey with a very long tail.”
Scientists have identified a handful of these “four-winged” dinosaurs, known as microraptorines. C yangi is the largest.
Scientists believe that birds evolved from small, feathered dinosaurs.
Crow-sized Archaeopteryx, which lived about 150 million years ago, is considered by many to be the earliest known bird. However, many dinosaurs before and after had feathers and other bird-like characteristics.
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County paleontologist Luis Chiappe, who led the study, said C yangi lived in a forested environment in a temperate climate, hunting birds, mammals, small reptiles and fish.
“Animals like Changyuraptor were probably not engaged in powered flight like modern birds. However, Changyuraptor and dinosaurs like it could flap their wings and certainly had large feathered surfaces on both their forelimbs and hind limbs,” Turner said.
“So this does raise the possibility they could glide or ‘fly’ in a primitive sort of way. The way I like to think of it is: If you pushed them out of a tree, they’d fall pretty slowly,” he said.
If C yangi were able to become airborne, its long tail feathers might have helped reduce descent speed and enabled safe landings.
“This helps explain how animals like Changyuraptor could engage in some form of aerial locomotion — flight, gliding, and/or controlled descents — despite their size,” Turner said.
The fossil was unearthed in Liaoning Province in northeastern China.
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese