JAKARTA - Scientists have discovered a new dinosaur species named Jian changmaensis in Gansu Province, China. This animal lived about 120 million years ago and was thought to be hairy, could live on land and trees, and even glide like a flying squirrel to ambush prey.
The Independent, quoted Thursday, June 11, reported that Jian was a close relative of Velociraptor. Its size is about the size of a barn owl and lives in the Cretaceous Period, a time when many dinosaurs still dominated the land.
This finding was published in the journal Annals of the Carnegie Museum. The Jian fossil was found in an area known to be rich in well-preserved bird fossils.
Paleontologist Matt Lamanna of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh said Jian likely looked like a small Velociraptor, but had long fur on its front and back legs.
"Jian will look like a little Velociraptor - the real Velociraptor, not the scaly creature from Jurassic Park," Lamanna said, quoted by The Independent.
He described Jian as a "Velociraptor trying to be a flying squirrel". The difference is that Jian is a predator, while flying squirrels are not.
According to The Independent, the Jian fossil was found along with the bones of a bird that was crushed into a pellet-like lump of a bird of prey. This finding led researchers to suspect that Jian preyed on birds and had a similar digestive process.
Lamanna said Jian's body size and way of life made the animal likely to have been the pellet maker.
Jian was identified from five shoulder and arm bones. The name Jian is taken from a flying creature in Chinese folklore. The bones distinguish it from Microraptor, a close relative that lived in the same region and time.
Although the fossil is incomplete, researchers suspect Jian is similar to Microraptor. This animal is known to have hairy arms and legs so it looks like it has four wings.
Jian belongs to the theropod group, which includes meat-eating dinosaurs that also include Tyrannosaurus rex. However, many theropods are small in size and occupy a role like today's small predators.
Birds themselves evolved from small feathered dinosaurs in the Jurassic Period. The oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, lived about 150 million years ago.
The ancient lake ecosystem in China likely provided many prey for Jian. One of them was Gansus, a semi-aquatic bird the size of a pigeon that is suspected of having webbed feet and toothed mouths.
Jingmai O'Connor, a paleontologist from the Field Museum in Chicago, said Jian was likely an ambush predator. The animal is suspected of stalking and then pouncing on birds that were distracted looking for food.
According to O'Connor, Jian may not have only eaten birds. Like Microraptor, he likely preyed on anything he could catch, including lizards, small mammals, or fish.
The Velociraptor famous through the film is actually about the size of a large turkey and lived in Asia about 45 million years after Jian. Jian, Microraptor, and Velociraptor belong to the dromaeosaur group, or raptor, which is a nimble-bodied dinosaur and adapted to chase prey.
The largest raptor, Utahraptor, lived in North America about 15 million years before Jian and could reach 7 meters in length. Jian is much smaller, a little over 1 meter long including the tail.
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