About 148 to 150 million years ago, a bird-like dinosaur with an unusual anatomy roamed southeastern China. This creature, comparable in size to a modern pheasant, featured elongated legs and wing-like arms. The recent discovery of its fossil in Fujian Province has provided significant insights into the early evolutionary stages of birds.
Min Wang, a prominent palaeontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is at the helm of this study. According to him, classifying this recently unearthed dinosaur, named Fujianvenator prodigiosus, as a bird is a matter of how one defines a bird. This creature boasts a peculiar combination of skeletal features, distinguishing it greatly from modern bird. Despite this, it is identified as a part of the avialan group, which encompasses all birds and their closest non-bird dinosaur relatives. This discovery opens up further avenues to explore the transition of theropods to birds, marking a significant milestone in dinosaur evolution.
Fujianvenator: A Puzzling Ancestral Link with Birds
The fossil of Fujianvenator, although lacking a skull and sections of its feet, exhibits some extraordinary features. Its tibia is notably twice as long as its femur, a characteristic not seen in other theropods. Additionally, it had a pronounced bony tail and forelimbs resembling bird’s wings but bearing claws, which are absent in modern birds. Wang notes that while it is undetermined whether this creature could fly, its anatomy suggests it might not have been adept at it.
Furthermore, there is speculation that Fujianvenator might have had feathers, considering the traits found in its closest avialan relatives. Based on its long-legged anatomy, it is proposed that this dinosaur might have either been a swift runner or adapted to wading in swampy environments, akin to modern herons or cranes. As scientists delve deeper, Fujianvenator serves as a vital link, potentially bridging gaps in understanding the bird lineage’s earliest phases and the various bird-like dinosaurs coexisting during the same period.
