World’s largest four-winged dinosaur discovered

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/16/worlds-largest-four-winged-dinosaur-discovered-and-it-has-massive-feathers/

by tokenadult • 12 years ago

151 21 12 years ago

washingtonpost.com

bane2• 12 years ago

So fantasy dragons and Avatar notwithstanding, six limbs on a land dweller is pretty weird. I'm going to have to question this creature either being real or actually having four-wings and a pair of legs.

http://www.thegeektwins.com/2010/06/flawed-science-of-avatar...

edit Looking a bit more into it, it looks like the artist's picture is a hopeful fantasy. The class of animals were more like flying squirrels in the sense that they used their hind legs for lift as well. So they're four limbed animals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microraptor

tokenadult• 12 years ago

Dinosaurs are part of the tetrapod clade, so I never expected "four-winged" to mean anything other than that the hind limbs and forelimbs are both feathered and used for flight. That's what the artist's conception based on the discovered fossils shows.

bane2• 12 years ago

Oh wow. I think I need more coffee. The first few times I looked at the artist's rendering, I swear I thought it was a 4 winged, two legged animal. But you're right, they rendered it as a tetrapod.

JackFr• 12 years ago

Flight of the Dragons postulates a four-limbed winged dragon, with wings evolving from ribs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_of_Dragons_%28book%2...

freehunter• 12 years ago

It's also a fiction book.

bostonpete2• 12 years ago

Did they change the artist's picture or something? The image I see in the article shows 4 limbs, all of them wings.

smoyer• 12 years ago

I know it doesn't fit the profile (a lion's body and hind legs), but when I first saw the picture, I immediately thought "that's a griffin". The fact that there were also feathers on the hind legs and tail-feathers instead of a lion's tail were only things I noticed after looking more closely!

bostonpete2• 12 years ago

Well, it would also need two front legs.

mkoryak• 12 years ago

FYI: The fossil image in the article is actually 600x900:

http://img.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp-content/up...

mcguire• 12 years ago

Given the rarity of non-bone fossilization, that is a beautiful fossil.

Istof• 12 years ago

I wonder which conditions are required to get a whole-body fossil

create_acct• 12 years ago

The largest wing span (20-24 feet) for a bird ever known was discovered this week as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagornis_sandersi

tempestn2• 12 years ago

Wow, that article linked to this[1], from which I learned that the largest flying Pterosaurs had wingspans of over 10m (~35ft), and weighed upwards of 250kg (550lb).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur_size#Speculation_abo...

quarterwave• 12 years ago

I was curious how feathers -> flight evolved, came across this article: http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/thedinobirdconnection/a/origin...

bitwize• 12 years ago

A creature too awesome to have had any right to exist.

I was like "Didn't I have to fight that thing in Shadow of the Colossus?"

NickWarner775• 12 years ago

Crazy to think there are still so many species that we havnt discovered. Now Im waiting for the discovery of dragon fossils.

tempestn2• 12 years ago

This kind of thing is so awesome. I want my Jurassic Park, dang it!

justinngc• 12 years ago

We should not forget that dinosaurs are actually reptiles, and that they "evolved" from reptiles to birds to adjust to changes and circumstances.

More info here: http://www.mapoflife.org/topics/topic_431_Evolution-of-birds...

World’s largest four-winged dinosaur discovered

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