Feathered dinosaur evolved flight independently of birds — SkimNews
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- Ji Qiang and colleagues at Hebei GEO University identified the specimen as a new species, Norellraptor barsboldi, honoring paleontologists Mark Allen Norell and Rinchen Barsbold; it belongs to the microraptorine group of small feathered, winged dinosaurs.
- The 57-centimeter fossil, dating to 100-145 million years ago, was discovered by a farmer near Lamadong in Liaoning, China, and donated to the university museum in 2023, preserving plumage, teeth, wings, an articulated spine, and a long tail resembling Archaeopteryx.
- The researchers determined the animal was a young adult, at least 3 years old when it died, with feathers likely associated with flight, while analyses show its forelimb growth pattern diverges from that of living birds.
- Norellraptor barsboldi shares flight-related adaptations with birds — including shortened and fused wing bones — but the team argues these were not inherited from a common ancestor and instead evolved separately in the two lineages.
- Roughly 30% of anatomical changes in microraptorines also evolved in the bird lineage, but in a different order, which the authors cite as evidence that flight emerged independently and for different reasons in each group.
- Jacqueline Nguyen of the Australian Museum said the finding shows the evolutionary path to flight was not a single linear progression but a set of innovations that appeared independently across dinosaur lineages.
Why it matters: The independent-evolution finding — supported by ~30% overlapping anatomical changes occurring in a different sequence — reframes avian origins as a repeated evolutionary experiment rather than a single ancestral trajectory, giving paleontologists a new anatomical reference point in the Liaoning fossil beds that have repeatedly reshaped bird-origin debates over the past three decades.
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