Researchers are reported to have discovered a feathered and "four-winged" dinosaur species. This dinosaur species was named Changyuraptor yangi. This animal has fur all over its body, including on a pair of arms and legs.
Reportedly, the fossil of this dinosaur was found in 2012 in Liaoning province in northeastern China. Where, the region has been the epicenter of a wave of feathered dinosaur discoveries over the past decade. This fossil is known to be 125 million years old.
Seeing this, one of the paleontologists and Director of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Luis Chiappe, commented.
"Most of the feathered dinosaurs in Liaoning were collected by the farmers who lived there," he said.
"Microraptorines are thought to be very close cousins of birds, sharing a common raptor ancestor," he explained, citing Live Science.
Chiappe said that Changyuraptor yangi belonged to the microraptorines, a group of predatory feathered dinosaurs related to Velociraptor and other well-known raptor dinosaurs.
It's just not yet known whether the four-winged body is something unique to the microraptorine, or something that the common ancestor of birds and microraptorines had.
On the other hand, researchers estimate that the Changyuraptor found was about 1.2 meters long and weighed up to 4 kg. This figure makes it the largest four-winged dinosaur ever found.
"When Changyuraptor was alive, the area where it lived was a vast peninsula or wedge into the sea, with volcanoes," Chiappe explained.
"The area is a humid temperate forest, mostly covered in conifers and gingko, with dry summers and moderately cold winters. There were a variety of meat-eating and plant-eating dinosaurs in the area, including Yutyrannus, a feathered relative of Tyrannosaurus that may have been taller." 27 to 30 feet (8.2 to 9.1 meters)." he said.