4-Winged Dinosaur Fossil Found

Anonymous Coward writes "Scientists in China say they have found fossilized remains of a dinosaur with four feathered wings that it probably used for gliding, a find they say strengthens the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. See the story on CNN or BBC with a cool rendering of what it possibly looked like or at NYTimes (yadda)."

Comments

take this with a grain of salt

[davejenkins]

There was an excellent documentary on the BBC last summer that showed the elaborate lengths to which the Chinese fraud industry will go to fake a winged fossil.

The fraud detailed in the show fooled even National Geographic, which had spent thousands on research, documentation, and 'verification' by palaentologists.

I bet $20 this one turns out to be a fake.

Re:take this with a grain of salt

[elmegil]

Peer reviewers or not, when I heard this described on NPR last night, they commented that "usually fossils come out in fragments and are very difficult to piece together. These came out very whole, and amazingly detailed, down to all the feathers details." That just screams fraud to me.

Re:how does this thing walk around ?

[cyrek]

Evolution tends to follow similar paths in similar situations.

The article suggests that the Microraptors might have 'flown' like flying squirrels do. Since the squirrels have no problems getting around, I guess the 'raptors had no trouble.

Mammals have developed two forms of flight - the modified hand as a wing in Bats and the three flaps of skin between limbs used by some Squirrels.

It stands to reason to assume that if Birds today use the modified hand method, that there might have been some other dinosaur subspecies that used the other method.