Evolution conducted an experiment, creating a dinosaur with bat wings

For many years, it was believed that dinosaurswere covered with scales - that is why artists depicted them as huge reptiles. However, in recent times, researchers have begun to discover more and more evidence that the inhabitants of the ancient Earth were feathered creatures. In addition to them, as it turned out, evolution also created "experimental" species that did not live long - the newly discovered dinosaur Ambopteryx longibrachium, for example, had skin covered wings.

This kind of ancient creatures belonged to the familySkanoriopterterid - small dinosaurs, vaguely resembling parrots or bats. The body length of Ambopteryx longibrachium, which lived about 163 million years ago in the territory of the modern Chinese province of Liaoning, was only 33 centimeters. With all this, its weight was about 200 grams.

Unlike other members of the family,the species did not have feathered wings. Instead, he had long thin fingers, along which the membranes stretched - the same structure of the wings can be observed in modern bats. The researchers believe that such wings did not have an evolutionary continuation, and in this natural experiment, the feathered covering of the wings won.

The most interesting thing is that this is not the first dinosaur withlike wings. In 2015, Chinese paleontologists found another representative of scans-aorpterigids, and gave him the name Yi qi. But the dinosaur found is definitely not related to this species, because there are noticeable differences in their skeleton. In particular, we are talking about wider and longer forelimbs and a short tail with accrete vertebrae at the end.

If you are interested in paleontology, we recommendyou watch two videos on this topic. In the first one you can see how the baby cubs of tyrannosaurs looked like, whose body was covered with feathers. The second video shows a robot demonstrating how dinosaurs learned to fly and became the ancient ancestors of modern birds.

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