The wings may have also helped the dinosaur glide for indeterminate distances.Īrtist Chuang Zhao worked with the scientists to paint a vivid depiction of what Zhenyuanlong may have looked like. Why did dinosaurs evolve wings?”Ī farmer who has asked to remain anonymous first found the Zhenyuanlong fossil in China’s Liaoning province.įor nearly twenty years, this area has been fertile ground for dinosaur discoveries. There’s no way it could fly,” Brusatte explains, in a phone interview with CNN. “This is the first time that we have wings found on a dinosaur this big with short arms. The discovery has left scientists with a question. “The cool thing here is that it is a dinosaur that looks a lot like a bird,” says Stephen Brusatte, a Scotland-based paleontologist who is one of the co-authors of the report. Clearly visible around the creature’s short arms are a pattern of long feathers, which also appear to have decorated the dinosaur’s tail. The relic shows the complete skeleton of the animal, as well as its skull displayed in profile. Researchers revealed the discovery of Zhenyuanlong suni, a close relative of its far more famous cousin – the velociraptor, after publishing a photo of a remarkably preserved fossil. Around 125 million years ago, a mule-sized dinosaur with a long tail and short, resplendently-feathered wings roamed a corner of what is now northeastern China.

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