The Discovery
A remarkably well-preserved fossil found in China's Liaoning province is shedding new light on the ancient evolution of flight. Uncovered by a local farmer, the specimen represents a newly described species named Norellraptor barsboldi. An international team of researchers from China, Italy, and Slovakia described the find in a paper published on September 29 in Nature Communications. The fossil belongs to a 57-centimetre-long creature estimated to have been roughly three years old when it died.
The creature is a microraptorine, a group of small meat-eating dinosaurs that typically weighed around one kilogram. These feathered animals roamed the area between 145 and 100 million years ago. The fossilized remains feature distinct traces of plumage on the forelimbs, hind limbs, and at the tip of the tail.
What Scientists Found
Microraptorines are close relatives of birds, which belong to the Avialae clade. By comparing the flight-related traits of microraptorines with those in the bird lineage, researchers evaluated 194 adaptations associated with flight. They determined that 30 percent of these traits were shared between microraptorines and the bird group. Key shared adaptations include:
- Wing feathers
- Hook-shaped toe bones
- A forearm bone that is longer than the upper arm bone
However, these adaptations did not emerge in the same chronological order in both lines. Because the traits developed differently over time, scientists concluded that the two groups did not share a single developmental pathway for flying.
Why It Matters
This discovery strengthens the concept that aerial movement evolved several times among feathered dinosaurs rather than through a single evolutionary branch. Michael Pittman, a palaeobiologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, noted that the specimen provides crucial evidence that flight originated separately in microraptorines and birds. Neil Gostling, an evolutionary developmental biologist at the University of Southampton, expressed surprise that most physical changes were unshared, remarking that prehistoric species tested many evolutionary paths to gain the distinct advantages of flight.
Source: dinosaur fossil discovery - BingNews · Published October 02, 2026