Paleontologists on Tuesday added another dinosaur to the microraptorine species, a species that is related to early avian. Measuring 132cm from tip to tail this dinosaur, named a Changyuraptor yangi, is the largest one of its kind to date. To compare to living birds it is larger than eagles or albatrosses.
These bones were discovered by two teams, one from Bohai University in China and the other from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, US. The C. yangi's tail and hind wings were both very large, leading researchers to believe that helped steady and direct it as it flew.
Many four winged dinosaurs were not as capable of flight as one might expect, but that they could glide instead. Their large wings and feathers making them capable of slowing down and landing. Previously it was thought that four winged dinosaurs were the stepping stones to flight, but subsequent discoveries have debunked that theory.
The birds that are around today are descended from small, feathered dinosaurs. One of the earliest ancestors of birds is the Archaeopteryx. It has acted as the transitional step from dinosaurs to birds. That is not to say that every dinosaur with feathers is an ancestor of modern birds. Many of them before and after the Archaeopteryx had feathers, but thanks to the bone structure of the Archaeopteryx's wing and the advanced level of feathers on the wings, many agree that it is the first bird.
The C. yangi's tail feathers are 30cm in length, longer than other discovered. The fossil has been dated around 125 million years old. It's cousins were the much more famous, and larger, velociraptors. Weighing 4kg the C. yangi outclassed many of the other microaptors by 3kg at least.
Through this discovery paleontologists will be able to better understand the paths of evolutions that some species took. It also shows that the small size of the microraptor family was not a prerequisite for flight.
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