An artist's impression of the new dinosaur Yi qi. Dinostar Co. Ltd
Posted on 04/29/2015 12:01:11 PM PDT by BenLurkin
A dinosaur with bat-like wings once soared through the skies of what is now China,
The Jurassic dinosaur, named Yi qi, has the shortest name ever given to a dino: Yi qi, pronounced "ee chee," means "strange wing." It also appears to be the earliest known flying non-avian dinosaur. At 160 million years old, it is older than the first known birds, such as Archaeopteryx.
...
He and his colleagues unearthed the remains for Yi qi at Hebei Province in China. At first, the scientists puzzled over rod-like bones that extended from each wrist of the tiny dinosaur that weighed about the same as a modern pigeon.
... Corwin Sullivan, a Canadian paleontologist now based at the IVPP, determined their real purpose after he pored over scientific literature on flying and gliding animals for a different project.
Sullivan recalled that he "came across a paragraph in a textbook that said flying squirrels have a strut of cartilage attached to either the wrist or elbow to help support the flight membrane. I immediately thought, wait a minute--that sounds familiar!"
"This is the most unexpected discovery I have ever made, even though I have found a few really bizarre dinosaurs in my career," noted paleontologist Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing told Discovery News.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
Sure. Let’s see the actual fossils.
Great, a flying batratosaur!
He was a glider, not a flier. Doesn't count.
Really? Another day in the world of crap!
Thanks BenLurkin.
A dragon.
They did not survive the early Kung Pao period.
Think of it as a prototype of a dragon. Wonder if it also breathed fire?
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