Prehistoric creature had unusual lower limbs
A bird-like, tiny — pheasant-sized — dinosaur with amazing characteristics discovered in China.
Photo: pxfuel.com
The fossilized remains of a tiny bird-like dinosaur with surprisingly long lower limbs have been discovered in China, CNN reports .
This creature probably lived during the late Jurassic period, 148-150 million years ago, in what is now Fujian province in southeast China.
Named Fuijianvenator prodigiosus, which means «fancy hunter from Fuijian» in Latin, the creature had elongated lower limbs that were twice as long as its hips. The opposite is true for most dinosaurs, CNN points out.
The fossil, weighing about 641 grams and about the size of a pheasant, is important because it bridges a gap in the «fossil record» close to the origin birds, says Ming Wang, lead author of the study published recently in the journal Nature.
Birds evolved from bipedal therapod dinosaurs (to which Tyrannosaurus Rex belonged) in the Jurassic period, but knowledge of their early evolutionary history is hampered by the relative lack of fossils from this time, CNN notes.
“Fujianvenator, given its unique skeletal morphology, sheds new light on the morphological evolution… at the earliest stage of bird evolution,” says Professor Min Wang from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.
According to the study, in modern animals, an elongated tibia is associated with species that can run quickly, suggesting that the bird-like Fuijianvenator may have been a fast runner.
In birds, however, this feature is also present in wading birds such as like storks and cranes, making it possible that the Fuijianvenator dinosaur existed in a swampy aquatic environment.
The fossil was found along with fossils of other aquatic and semi-aquatic animals, including turtles and ray-finned fish, suggesting that the ancient creature may , lived in swamps.
Other known early bird-like dinosaurs lived in trees and were more “aerial” in nature, the study says.
Although no feathers are preserved in the fossil, it is highly likely that Fujianvenator had them because its closest relatives in the dinosaur family tree had them, says Professor Ming Wang. It is impossible to determine from the fossils whether the bird-like dinosaur could fly or not, he added.