Feathered Dinosaur From the Jurassic Period Discovered in China

Archaeologists in China have discovered the fossilized remains of a feathered dinosaur the size of a pigeon believed to have lived millions of years before birds evolved but which may be an early avian ancestor.

The discovery of a 90% intact fossil preserved in a slab of rock at a site in Laioning Province in Inner Mongolia, heightens the notion that tiny-bodied, carnivorous bipedal dinosaurs are closely related to and most certainly evolved into birds.

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It is thought, however, the Jurassic era creature named Epidexipteryx probably did not fly an inch but crept from one tree branch to another using ribbon-like feathers on its tail for balance, according to a report published in the October 23 issue of the Nature journal.

They may also have used the feathers for display or ornamentation purposes, Fucheng Zhang and Xing Xu, the researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who made the discovery, said in the report.

The researchers suspect the bizarre dinosaur of the family, scansoriopterygidae, or “climbing wings”, lived between 152 and 168 million years ago, easily outdating Archaeopteryx, the oldest known bird, that lived about 125 million years ago.

Image credit: Zhao Chuang & Xing Lida via Palaeoblog

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