New Bird-Like Dinosaur Related to Archaeopteryx

A new fossil dinosaur skeleton from China has revised the history of bird evolution. Again. The new dinosaur, Aurornis xui, appears to be related to Archaeopteryx.

What's more, the well-preserved fossil indicates that these two species belong to an ancestral group of birds which had split off from dinosaurs like Troodon and Velociraptor. Those dinosaurs are now known to have had feathers, but are not considered to be birds.

These observations and the description of the new feathered beast are described in the science journal Nature.

Image Credit: Masato Hattori