Could ‘four-winged’ dinosaurs fly?

Kevin Padian () and Kenneth P. Dial
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Kevin Padian: Museum of Paleontology, University of California
Kenneth P. Dial: University of Montana

Nature, 2005, vol. 438, issue 7066, E3-E3

Abstract: Abstract Arising from: X. Xu et al. Nature 421, 335–340 (2003); F. Zhang & Z. Zhou Nature 431, 925 (2004); X. Xu et al. reply ; F. Zhang et al. reply Our understanding of the origin of birds, feathers and flight has been greatly advanced by new discoveries of feathered non-avian dinosaurs, but functional analyses have not kept pace with taxonomic descriptions. Zhang and Zhou describe feathers on the tibiotarsus of a new basal enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of China1. They infer, as did Xu and colleagues from similar feathers on the small non-avian theropod Microraptor found in similar deposits2, that these leg feathers had aerodynamic properties and so might have been used in some kind of flight.

Date: 2005
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DOI: 10.1038/nature04354

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