'Dancing dragon' feathered dinosaur fossil discovered in China
About 120 million years ago, a "dancing dragon" lived in China's Jehol Province. The discovery of a fossil belonging to the small feathered dinosaur is new to science and helps bridge the gap between dinosaurs and birds. "We're talking about animals that lived twice as long ago as T. rex, so it's pretty amazing how well-preserved they are," Ashley Poust, a postdoctoral researcher at the San Diego Natural History Museum, said. The dinosaur was an early relative of Velociraptors, which lived 75 million years ago.
Researchers named the dinosaur Wulong bohaiensis, which translates to "a dancing dragon."
The dinosaur was about the size of a raven but double its length with a long, bony tail. Its entire body was covered with feathers, complete with two plumes at the tail's end. Despite its small size, it had a fierce, narrow face and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Like a bird, it had small, light bones and wing-like forelimbs. And there were also a number of feathers on its legs.
The findings were published last week in the journal The Anatomical Record. "The new dinosaur fits in with an incredible [range] of feathered, winged animals that are closely related to the origin of birds," Poust, the study's author, said. "Studying specimens like this not only shows us the sometimes surprising paths that ancient life has taken, but also allows us to test ideas about how important bird characteristics, including flight, arose in the distant past."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/20/world/new-dinosaur-bird-discovery-scn-trnd/index.html
An artist rendering of what Wulong bohaiensis might have looked like.