A fossil of a bird-like dinosaur has been discovered in China that has surprised experts. The pheasant-sized dinosaur with long lower legs existed in southeast China's Fujian province about 148-150 million years ago, according to details of the discovery published in Nature. It has been named Fuijianvenator prodigiosus, which means "bizarre hunter from Fuijian" in Latin. The fossil was unearthed in 2022 and the creature is believed to be one of the earliest bird-like dinosaurs found till date from the Jurassic period, the magazine said.
"This is really a weird animal within the group of birds," Mark Loewen, a palaeontologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, told Nature. He was not involved in the discovery.
The creature might have lacked the ability to fly and it also doesn't seem to conform to the accepted bird-evolution story, said the research.
It added that dinosaurs were largely extinct by 66 million years ago, but Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus rex started to evolve into today's birds.
Many palaeontologists consider the first bird to be a 150-million-year-old feathered dinosaur called Archaeopteryx.
CNN quoted lead author Ming Wang as saying that the fossil weighs around 1.4 pounds (641 grams) and is important because it bridged a gap in the fossil record close to the origin of birds.
"Fujianvenator, given its unique skeletal morphologies, sheds new light about the morphological evolution... in the earliest evolutionary stage of birds," said Ming, a professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.
The creature's fossil was found with that of other aquatic and semi-aquatic animals, including turtles.
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