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Researchers Discover Largest Ever Dinosaur With Birdlike Wings and Feathers

Posted by Soulskill on from the death-chickens-of-the-mesozoic dept.

sciencehabit writes: When we see birds winging their way across the sky, we are really looking at living dinosaurs—the only lineage of these mighty beasts that survived mass extinction. Yet before they went extinct, many dinosaurs sprouted wings themselves. Researchers now report finding the largest ever winged dino in China, a sleek, birdlike creature adorned with multiple layers of feathers all over its arms and torso that lived 125 million years ago. The dino was about 1.65 meters long, a little longer than a modern condor, but at an estimated 20 kilograms, it was probably nearly twice as heavy as that bird. It almost certainly could not fly, however—an important confirmation that wings and feathers originally evolved to serve other functions like attracting mates and keeping eggs warm.

9 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Need Jurassic World Reboot by ScentCone · · Score: 2

    Read another piece yesterday that mentioned the find in question here was of a very, very close cousin to the good ol' Velociraptor. The conclusion there was that the Velociraptor was likely feathered as well, and not likely to look much like the leather/scaley beasts from the movies (and, um, they weren't that big, either, apparently).

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    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    1. Re:Need Jurassic World Reboot by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Informative

      Read another piece yesterday that mentioned the find in question here was of a very, very close cousin to the good ol' Velociraptor. The conclusion there was that the Velociraptor was likely feathered as well, and not likely to look much like the leather/scaley beasts from the movies (and, um, they weren't that big, either, apparently).

      The movie mentioned that same thing about feathers and said that the public wanted big scary monsters with no feathers.

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      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  2. Feather origin still unclear by Webs+101 · · Score: 5, Informative

    (I was a grad student of John Ostrom's once upon a time.)

    This may be "the first evidence of feather morphologies and distribution in a short-armed (and probably non-volant) dromaeosaurid" but this dinosaur says nothing about the origins of flight feathers. It lived 25 million years AFTER Archaeopteryx, so there were certainly flight feathers around for a very long time before it. This is really no more surprising than the fact that ostriches and emus still have feathers.

    The real question, which remains unanswered, is the exact relationship between dromaeosurids and birds and whether flight originated from the ground up (use of drag to control running) or the top down (use of drag to create lift).

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    "Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward

  3. Birds are not living dinosaurs, by fredrated · · Score: 2

    they are birds. It's called speciation.

    1. Re:Birds are not living dinosaurs, by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Dinosaur" is not a species. Nor is "bird."

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      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:Birds are not living dinosaurs, by Ken_g6 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      XKCD disagrees with you.

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      (T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
    3. Re:Birds are not living dinosaurs, by Xtifr · · Score: 2

      "Reptile"is another word that no longer has a solid scientific definition. (In large part because of birds.)

      The classic definition of reptile (since you're so enamored of classic, outmoded definitions of terms) includes being cold-blooded, though, so Dinosaurs wouldn't qualify anyway.

      But if you really enjoy speaking your own variant of English that is out of sync with what most people speak, more power to you. Just don't expect people to understand your antiquated and bizarrely anti-scientific terminology. Perhaps you can also refer to fire as "phlogiston-release". :)

    4. Re:Birds are not living dinosaurs, by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      Is the current scientific consensus also "wrong"?

      Scientific consensus is that birds are modern theropod dinosaurs.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Under phylogenetic taxonomy, dinosaurs are usually defined as the group consisting of Triceratops, Neornithes [modern birds], their most recent common ancestor (MRCA), and all descendants

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  4. Incomplete headline by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    Researchers Discover Largest Ever Dinosaur With Birdlike Wings and Feathers

    ...that we know of so far. There could have been a larger one we haven't discovered yet.

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    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.