4-winged dinasaur fossil found in China

[vniow]

Scientists in China have found the fossils of a feathered creature, identified as a small dinosaur, that they say casts new light on the origin of birds and their ability to fly.

With two sets of wings, one on the forelimbs and the other on its legs, it was a strange-looking animal, something like a scaled-up, three-foot-long dragonfly, but with feathers. All four wings were covered with feathers arranged in a pattern similar to that on modern birds. Even its long tail was fringed with feathers.

Reporting the discovery in today's issue of the journal Nature, the Chinese paleontologists said the animal probably used its four wings to glide from tree to tree, much as flying squirrels do today. This represented, they said, a previously unknown intermediate stage in the evolution of birds and flight.

"The significance of the new fossils is far beyond the strange appearance," the leader of the discovery team, Dr. Xing Xu of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, said in a statement. "It brings important information to the long-debated issue of avian flight origin."

 

[asparagui]

This is obviously another clever trick by God to make it appear she uses evolution as a process to create life.

-Brett
www.universe42.com

 

[zarathustra]

Originally posted by asparagui
This is obviously another clever trick by God to make it appear she uses evolution as a process to create life.

-Brett
www.universe42.com

The find itself is intriguing. It was a huge theoretical leap from feathered dinosaurs to flying birds, and up until now it was just a speculation. A few weeks ago I read a discussion in a scientific paper about how dinosaurs ran uphill to glide, rather than downhill, which led to flight. Obviously this shows that dinosaurs most likely started jumping from limb to limb, and then learned to fly - but this is mere speculation as well.

 

[pimentoLoaf]

Yum, yum. Tastes just like chicken.

 

[Juventuz]

A feathered dinosaur?

Aren't most, if not all, feathered animals warm blooded? Weren't all dinosaurs cold blooded?

 

[rainman::|:|]

Read your Necronomicon.

It's obviously some type of shoggoth, servant of The Old Ones.


pnw

 

[alset]

Originally posted by Juventuz
A feathered dinosaur?

Weren't all dinosaurs cold blooded?

That's the age old question.

Dan

 

[Backtothemac]

Why a long leap. There was the terydacthyl remember. Also, we know that the pelvis of velocoraptor was curved backwards, as was most of the dinos that walked on two legs. Their bones were full of airsacs and hollows just like a bird, and their snouts were designed for communication just like a bird. They actually have more in common with birds than with anything else on the earth.

 

[Clark C]

.

Asperiguio (or whatever your name is)... I'll call you Brett. Are you kidding with your post? I hope so cause as a Christian I am tired of other Christians posting radical comments that make the rest of us look like idiots.

 

[Backtothemac]

Originally posted by asparagui
This is obviously another clever trick by God to make it appear she uses evolution as a process to create life.

-Brett
www.universe42.com

Why could God not use Evolution? How do we know? Don't be so narrow minded.