New Dinosaur Fossil Reveals Small Dino with Featherless Bat-Like Wings; 160 Million Fossil Found in China

A strange fossil discovered in China baffles scientists as it resembles a dinosaur with wings made of skin instead of feathers.

The dinosaur was discovered by a farmer in northeast China and has been named Yi qi, meaning "strange wing" in Mandarin. According to LA Times, the strange fossil is a theropod, a bipedal category of dinosaurs that includes velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus rex. The study was published in the journal Nature and described the remains to be the archetype of the evolution of some dinosaurs into flying birds.

Yi qi comes from Scansoriopterygidae, a family of dinosaurs that have bizarre theropod features. They have third fingers longer than their second fingers. However, Yi qi has long forelimbs bone that starts from the wrist.

The unique bone structure seems to have been where its wings are located. Further evidence was discovered when membranous tissue remains were found between the bone and the fingers.

"Documentation of the unique forelimbs of Yi greatly increases the morphological disparity known to exist among dinosaurs, and highlights the extraordinary breadth and richness of the evolutionary experimentation that took place close to the origin of birds," the study authors said.

"Analogous features are unknown in any dinosaur but occur in various flying and gliding tetrapods, suggesting the intriguing possibility that Yi had membranous aerodynamic surfaces totally different from the archetypal feathered wings of birds and their closest relatives," they added.

The researchers are unsure whether the strange dinosaur was a flier or a glider. "It highlights how complex the transition from dinosaur to birds is," said Xu Xing from Beijing's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology, and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) and one of the authors of the study.

"Yi qi lived in the Jurassic, so it was a pioneer in the evolution of flight on the line to birds," said Linyi University's Zhen Xiaoting, another co-author. "It reminds us that the early history of flight was full of innovations, not all of which survived."

According to CBS News, the researchers thought the creature they discovered was flightless.

"We thought giving this animal a name meaning 'strange wing' was appropriate, because no other bird or dinosaur has a wing of the same kind," according to Xu. "We don't know if Yi qi was flapping, or gliding, or both, but it definitely evolved a wing that is unique in the context of the transition from dinosaurs to birds."

There is much to discover about Yi qi and the evolution from dinosaur to bird according to the researchers.

"It's a totally bizarre animal. We believe it can fly, though it probably was not a great flyer," he said. "It shows close to the transition to birds, there are bizarre lineages. Some of them tried to get into air, but most except the bird lineage failed," Xu told CBS News.