The “bizarre” long-legged bird-like dinosaur fascinates scientists

About 148 to 150 million years ago, a strange bird-like dinosaur, the size of a pheasant, with elongated legs and wing-like arms, roamed southeast China, and its puzzling anatomy suggests it was a runner. fast or lived a lifestyle similar to that of a modern dinosaur. coastal bird.

Scientists announced Wednesday that they had discovered in Fujian province the fossil of a Jurassic period dinosaur they have named Fujianvenator prodigiosus, a creature that helps explain a critical evolutionary stage in the origin of birds.

Whether the Fujianvenator, with its curious mix of skeletal features, should be classified as a bird or not depends on how you define a bird, according to study leader Min Wang, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

When asked for a word to describe the Fujianvenator, Wang replied, “I would say ‘bizarre.’ The Fujianvenator is far from resembling any modern bird.”

A notable event in dinosaur evolution occurred when small, feathered bipedal dinosaurs belonging to a lineage known as theropods gave rise to birds in the Late Jurassic Period, with the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, dating back approximately 150 million years. does in Germany.

Fujianvenator is a member of a group called avialans that includes all birds and their closest nonavian dinosaur relatives, Wang said. Despite their humble beginnings, birds survived the asteroid collision that doomed their fellow non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

The Fujianvenator fossil, discovered last October, is fairly complete but lacks the animal’s skull and parts of its legs, making its diet and lifestyle difficult to interpret.

Fujianvenator’s leg bone, the tibia, was twice as long as his thigh bone, the femur. Such dimensions are unique among theropods, a group that includes all carnivorous dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus and many others. It also had a long bony tail.

“The forelimbs are usually built like a bird’s wing, but with three claws on the toes, which are absent in modern birds. Fujianvenator was probably not good at flying,” Wang said.

“The fossil itself retains no feathers. However, its closest relatives and nearly all known avialan theropods have feathers, and feathers are widely distributed among dinosaurs. So it would not be a surprise if Fujianvenator had feathers,” Wang added. .

Based on the anatomy of their long legs, the researchers proposed two possible lifestyles: running fast or wading through a swampy environment, like modern cranes or herons.

“I would bet my money on the aisle,” Wang said.

Source: Terra

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