While studying ancient bird remains in China’s Changma Basin, researchers kept finding broken bones packed into odd, pellet-like clumps. The pattern suggested that some of the region’s earliest birds were being consumed by a predator and later regurgitated.<\/p>\n
The regurgitated pellets \u2014 similar to those produced by modern raptors such as hawks and owls \u2014 long puzzled scientists. Now, new research points to a previously unknown species of Microraptor dinosaur as the likely cause of these distinctive remains.<\/p>\n
What happened?<\/p>\n
According to research<\/a> reported by ScienceAlert<\/a>, scientists have recovered a portion of an animal’s upper arm bone that they believe belongs to a new genus and species of carnivore called the Jian changmaensis.<\/p>\n The fragment suggests the dinosaur had a wingspan of about 4 feet, similar to a barn owl’s. ScienceAlert noted the animal probably carried long feathers on both its forelimbs and its legs, creating a four-winged look. It also retained a long tail, a reptilian snout rather than a beak, and curved toe claws that would have helped it prey on smaller animals.<\/p>\n Why does it matter?<\/p>\n The discovery gives scientists a much clearer picture of what life may have looked like at an early bird fossil site. With the discovery, researchers can begin piecing together a more complete ecosystem \u2014 one that included predators capable of hunting the variety of bird species in the region.<\/p>\n The finding also adds another detail to the story of how flight evolved. Senior author Jingmai O’Connor said: “Microraptors probably weren’t capable of true, powered flight, but they could probably glide like a flying squirrel.” If so, gliding may have been enough to help this predator pursue or ambush early birds that were already capable of flight.<\/p>\n Researchers noted that despite being smaller than animals such as Velociraptors, Jian changmaensis was large compared to other members of the Microraptor family.<\/p>\n “Jian is one of the biggest Microraptor specimens that has ever been found,” O’Connor said.<\/p>\n Matt Lamanna, a paleontologist with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, said: “Our team has recovered more than a hundred bird fossils at Changma, but only this single non-avian dinosaur specimen. Jian provides critical new insight into the biological history of the Changma region and the ecological context of the ancestors of today’s birds.”<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While studying ancient bird remains in China’s Changma Basin, researchers kept finding broken bones packed into odd, pellet-like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,267634,10571,66,110957],"class_list":["post-747628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-changma-basin","tag-researchers","tag-science","tag-sciencealert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}