Dinosaur with four wings was the terror of Earth’s first birds

A newly discovered feathered dinosaur named Jian changmaensiscould be the missing predator responsible for mysterious piles of crushed prehistoric bird bones found in China.

A remarkable fossil site in northwestern China has revealed hundreds of remains of prehistoric birdsincluding sets of bones broken and compressed into masses similar to egagropyles, such as those produced by modern owls.

It is four-wing glidera close relative of Velociraptorhelps reveal how the first birds and their dinosaur relatives shared the same ancient landscape.

For years, paleontologists suspected that a larger predator was responsible for hunting these birds, but they had never found direct evidence of this animal. Now a newly described dinosaur may provide the answer.

In one published in the magazine Annals of Carnegie Museumresearchers report the discovery of a previously unknown species of dinosaur, coming from the same fossil deposit.

The animal was a feathered relative of the Velociraptorwith long feathers on both the front and back limbs. Based on distinctive features of the arm and shoulder bones, scientists believe this dinosaur could have been the responsible predator by the mysterious accumulations of bird bones.

“These strange sets of bones of broken birds, and we did not know what had produced them. This new microraptor, Jian changmaensisnow is our best chance,” says she, associate curator of fossil reptiles at the Field Museum in Chicago and senior author of the paper describing the new species.

“It’s the only dinosaur found in this place that wasn’t a bird, it was carnivorous and it was much bigger than anything else we found there,” adds O’Connor, known as the “punk rock paleontologist.”

Velociraptor’s feathered relative

Current birds are only surviving dinosaurshaving resisted the consequences of the asteroid impact that hit Earth 66 million years ago. But long before this event, birds lived side by side with many other groups of dinosaurs during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Among his closest relatives were the dromeossaurosa group of feathered dinosaurs known for being relatively small and agile predators.

O Velociraptor, Made famous by the “Jurassic Park” filmsis one of the best-known members of this group — although, in reality, these animals were smaller and much more covered in feathers than they are portrayed in the movies.

The new species identified, Jian changmaensisbelongs to a subgroup of dromaeosaurs called microrraptores. Most microraptors were quite small, with some species only reaching the size of size of a crow.

“O Jian It is one of the largest specimens of microraptor ever found,” says O’Connor. “The arm bone fragment we have measures about 10 centimeters, so the entire dinosaur would probably have had a wingspan of about 1.2 meters, approximately the size of a barn owl.”

Although scientists only recovered part of the animal’s arm, they suspect that the Jian shared an essential characteristic with other microraptors. Long feathers would probably cover both arms and legscreating the appearance of four wings.

Instead of flying like modern birds, these dinosaurs would probably have been adapted for gliding.

“O Jian and the other microraptors were probably not capable of active flight per se, but should be able to glide like a flying squirrel“, says O’Connor.

The dinosaur’s name reflects both its appearance and the location where it was discovered. In Chinese mythology, Jian is a winged creaturewhile changmaensis refers to the Changma basin, in the Chinese province of Gansu, where the fossil was found.