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  • Ecology & evolution

Published online: 7 October 2009 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2009.199

Palaeontology: Four wings and a prey

Felix Cheung

Introduction

© (2009) Nature

Most palaeontologists would agree that birds are descended from dinosaurs. However, well-preserved fossils of bird-like dinosaurs in the Jurassic — the era before birds evolved — are extremely rare. Dongyu Hu at Shenyang Normal University, Xu Xing at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and co-workers¹ have uncovered an exceptionally well-preserved specimen of the feathered dinosaur Anchiornis huxleyi (pictured) from the Late Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation in Liaoning. They estimated the age of the specimen to be between 161 and 151 million years, older than the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx.

The new specimen exhibits bird-like features, including a sub-triangular skull, long feathered forelimbs and a tail. Perhaps the strangest feature of this specimen, however, is the disproportionally large contour feathers that cover nearly the whole length of the hindlimbs — a condition not found in other fossils. When alive, Anchiornis huxleyi would have looked like a four-winged dinosaur that probably could not fly.

The findings suggest that large contour feathers first evolved on the hindlimbs, as on the forelimbs and tails. The feathers on the forelimbs continued to develop, whereas feathers on the hindlimbs shrunk or were lost in subsequent avian evolution.

The authors of this work are from:
Paleontological Institute, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang, China; Key Laboratory of Evolutionary Systematics of Vertebrates, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Shenyang Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, Shenyang, China.

Reference

1. Hu, D., Hou, L., Zhang, L. & Xu, X. A pre-Archaeopteryx troodontid theropod from China with long feathers on the metatarsus. Nature 461, 640–643 (2009).
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