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Xu Xing, who USA Today has called “China’s real-life Indiana Jones”, uncovered specimens of this most unusal dinosaur in the fossil beds of Liaoning Province in northeastern China. Xu Xing works at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China.  In the January 23rd issue of the journal Nature,  Xu and his colleagues discuss the possibility that this dinosaur is an early ancestor of birds.

The microraptor appears to have feathers on the arms, legs, and tail, making it a four-winged dinosaur. The microaptor is a genus of small, dromaeosaurid dinosaur from roughly 130-125.5 million years ago in the  Cretaceous Period (Barremian stage).

The Microraptor is s fascinating creature and the species gives paleontologists new evidence about links between birds and dinosaurs. AS National Geographic, January 23,2003, put “it could go a long way to answering a question scientists have puzzled over for close to 100 years: How did a group of ground-dwelling flightless dinosaurs evolve to a feathered animal capable of flying?”