Discovery of ‘bird-like’ dinosaur baffles scientists

About 148 to 150 million years ago, a strange, bird-like pheasant-sized dinosaur with long legs and wing-like arms lived in southeastern China.

The creature had a confusing anatomy, and it could have been a fast runner or lived a lifestyle similar to modern, long-legged birds.

Scientists said Wednesday they have discovered the fossil of a dinosaur from the Jurassic period in Fujian province, which they called “Fujianvenator prodigiosus,” in a discovery that sheds light on an important evolutionary step in the origin of birds.

Classifying Fujianvenator, with its peculiar skeletal features, depends on our definition of a bird, said Min Wang, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Human Paleontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who led the study.

When asked for one word to describe the Fujianfenator, Wang replied, “I think the (strange) Fujianfenator resembles any modern bird.”

A remarkable event in the evolution of dinosaurs occurred when a lineage known as theropod dinosaurs gave way to small dinosaurs with legs and feathers that led to the appearance of birds in the late Jurassic period. in Germany about 150 million years ago.

The Fujianvinator fossil, discovered last October, is fairly complete, but the animal’s skull and parts of its legs are missing, making it difficult to explain its diet and lifestyle.

Based on the anatomy of its long legs, the researchers proposed two possible lifestyles, running or wading through a marsh like modern cranes or herons.

“I bet it was a runner,” Wang said.

Scientists are trying to better understand the origin of birds and non-avian dinosaurs with bird-like features.

The earliest chapters in the history of birds are still shrouded in mystery due to the paucity of fossils. After Archeopteryx, a crow-sized bird with no teeth, long bony tail and beak, was first fossilized in the 19th century, there is a gap of about 20 million years between subsequent birds appearing in the fossil record.