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LOS ANGELES — The fossil of a dinosaur covered in feathers that had two sets of wings was discovered in China, researchers announced Tuesday.
Other four-winged dinosaurs have previously been discovered, but the 125 million-year-old Changyuraptor yangi is the largest so far of its kind. The discovery provides new insight into dinosaur flight, according to the study published in Nature Communications.
“At a foot in length, the amazing tail feathers of Changyuraptor are by far the longest of any feathered dinosaur,” Luis Chiappe, a paleontologist with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said in a statement.
The dinosaur was discovered in the Liaoning Province in northeastern China by an international team led by the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles County. It was a 4-foot-long adult raptor that weighed about 9 pounds, researchers said.
The new fossil documents that dinosaur flight was not limited to very small animals but to dinosaurs of more substantial size.
–Chiappe
While the Changyuraptor yangi is a dinosaur, paleontologist Alan Turner told Reuters it would look like a ”weird" bird.
“Think a mid-sized turkey with a very long tail," he said.
The dinosaur had hollow bones in addition to long feathers on the legs and arms, leading researchers to believe it was capable of flight. They wrote that the long tail feathers likely gave the dinosaurs more control and were instrumental in decreasing descent speed.
“The new fossil documents that dinosaur flight was not limited to very small animals but to dinosaurs of more substantial size,” Chiappe said. “Clearly far more evidence is needed to understand the nuances of dinosaur flight, but Changyuraptor is a major leap in the right direction.”
