{"id":5550,"date":"2017-05-10T11:27:38","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T15:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=5550"},"modified":"2017-05-10T11:35:15","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T15:35:15","slug":"newly-discovered-feathered-dinosaur-sheds-light-on-the-evolution-of-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/newly-discovered-feathered-dinosaur-sheds-light-on-the-evolution-of-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Newly discovered feathered dinosaur sheds light on the evolution of flight <img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5551\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5551\" class=\"wp-image-5551\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/unnamed-14.jpg\" alt=\"feathered dinosaur\" width=\"600\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/unnamed-14.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/unnamed-14-300x164.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5551\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Life reconstruction of the asymmetrically feathered troodontid <em>Jianianhualong tengi (Image by Julius T. Csotonyi 2017 \/ Xu, Currie, Pittman et al. )<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>A newly discovered troodontid\u00a0species is the earliest example of a bird-like dinosaur with asymmetric feathers\u2014a physical trait associated with the evolution of flight. The new species, named <em>Jianianhualong tengi<\/em>, was described from a nearly complete skeleton with preserved feathers. The fossil dates from the Early Cretaceous period\u2014\u00a0approximately 100-145 million years ago\u2014and was found in north-eastern China. This dinosaur was nearly a meter long, with a long frond-like tail, and asymmetric feathers on its front and hind limbs. Researchers can&#8217;t be certain that <em>Jianianhualong tengi <\/em>could fly; nevertheless, the presence of asymmetric feathers points to the development of aerodynamic features in bird ancestors earlier than previously thought.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Authors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Xing Xu, Philip Currie, Michael Pittman, Lida Xing, Qingjin Meng, Junchang L\u00fc, Dongyu Hu &amp; Congyu Yu<\/p>\n<p><strong>Canadian author:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Philip Currie, Department of Biological <span class=\"il\">Sciences<\/span>, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Email: <a href=\"mailto:philip.currie@ualberta.ca\" target=\"_blank\">philip.currie@ualberta.ca<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/ncomms14972\" target=\"_blank\">Original paper<\/a> published in<em> Nature Communications<\/em> on May 2, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A newly discovered troodontid\u00a0species is the earliest example of a bird-like dinosaur with asymmetric feathers\u2014a physical trait associated with the evolution of flight. The new species, named Jianianhualong tengi, was described from a nearly complete skeleton with preserved feathers. The fossil dates from the Early Cretaceous period\u2014\u00a0approximately 100-145 million years ago\u2014and was found in north-eastern [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[2008,917,2973,2972,1862],"class_list":["post-5550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-dinosaurs","tag-evolution","tag-feathers","tag-flight","tag-paleontology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/unnamed-141-e1494430509159.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-1rw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5552,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5550\/revisions\/5552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}