Unusual, new winged dinosaur fossil unearthed in China

An almost complete fossil of a feathered bird-like dinosaur was dug up by scientists in northeastern China. Although the creature has wings, they doubt it could really fly, due to its proportion. Scientists speculate the wings were used similarly to the peacock. This is the largest dinosaur with wings human has discovered, which was found to have existed at about 125 million years ago.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - Named Zhenyuanlong suni, the creature is a cousin of the Velociraptor (which lived 40-50 million years later) from the raptor group, which is closely related to birds.

The winged-creature was a carnivore about 1.8 meters long, covered with hair-like feathers on the body and dubbed the "fluffy feathered poodle from hell," by Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist from the University of Edinburgh. Reports note that its wings look like those of an eagle or a vulture. The Zhenyuanlong would closely resemble the turkey or a big chicken, said Brusatte.

"If you saw this wing on its own, you would probably think that Zhenyuanlong could fly. But it's a fairly big raptor, and its arms are so short in proportion to its body, that I have a hard time believing that it could fly or glide or do anything in the air," said Brusatte, who is working on the research alongside the Chinese paleontologist Junchang Lu.

He explained that the wings of the Zhenyuanlong were probably used to attract mates and ward off and intimidate rivals, like those of the peacock.

Scientists are puzzled by its existence, as it has traits not found in other dinosaurs. "Did they evolve specifically for flight? In that case, Zhenyuanlong perhaps descended from a flying ancestor and that's why it still has wings. Or, alternatively, did wings first evolve for display or egg brooding or some other type of function, and then only in some dinosaurs were they later co-opted into airfoils for gliding and flying?"

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