Feathered flying dinosaur with ‘very long fingers’ and wings like a BAT found in China is first of its kind
A DINOSAUR fossil with wings like a bat has been discovered in china.
The specimen is around 163 million years old and provides further evidence that dinosaurs related to birds had lots of different wing structures.
The tiny dinosaur probably only weighed around 200 grams and belonged to a group called scansoriopterygids.
This species of dinosaur are generally thought to have been feathered tree climbers, with very long hands and fingers.
However, this recently discovered dinosaur is a bit different as it has the unusual combination of feathers, bat wings, long finger like bones and wrists.
Scientists believe that the fossil helps to show part of the evolutionary process between scansoriopterygids and birds.
The new species has been called Yi qi and would have lived in the period before birds and bat like creatures split into different lineages.
After this species existed, feathered wings then went on to dominate.
The research has been published in the journal Nature.
Why did the dinosaurs die out?
Here's what you need to know...
- The dinosaur wipe-out was a sudden mass extinction event on Earth
- It wiped out roughly three-quarters of our planet’s plant and animal species around 66million years ago
- This event marked the end of the Cretaceous period, and opened the Cenozoic Era, which we’re still in today
- Scientists generally believe that a massive comet or asteroid around 9 miles wide crashed into Earth, devastating the planet
- This impact is said to have sparked a lingering “impact winter”, severely harming plant life and the food chain that relied on it
- More recent research suggests that this impact “ignited” major volcanic activity, which also led to the wiping-out of life
- Some research has suggested that dinosaur numbers were already declining due to climate changes at the time
- But a study published in March 2019 claims that dinosaurs were likely “thriving” before the extinction event
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In other news, experts have claimed that dinosaurs ‘would be with us today’ if their ‘sex lakes’ didn’t disappear.
The first feather fossil ever found was linked to the ‘wrong bird’ for 150 years, but really belongs to mystery dinosaur.
And, scientists have identified a relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex which is only 3ft tall.
What do you think of the newly discovered dinosaur? Let us know in the comments…
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