The largest flying dinosaur has been discovered in northeastern China in the Liaoning Province. Its been given the name Changyuraptor. The discovery of the fossil was made in China and has wide spreading paleontological implications which we shall discuss later in this piece.
The flying dinosaur was four feet long and is believed to have weighed five pounds. Interestingly, the entire body of these avian beasts were covered with feathers and they have been estimated to have lived one-twenty five million years ago.
The Changyuraptor had four wings which provided it with greater stability and direction control in flight. The tails on these fascinating creatures is estimated to be twelve inches long. Paleontologists suggest that the presence of over-sized feathers which cover the entire body of the archaic animal may have had an important role in landing.
Moving on to the paleontological implications; this piece of information may be suggestive of a more profound conclusion. That dinosaurs took flight much earlier than the evolution of birds.
In fact, Alan Turner of Stony Brook University points out that there are a number of features that experts had long associated with birds which now seem to have evolved from dinosaurs much before the evolution of the birds, examples include; nesting behavior, hollow bones, feathers and now probably even flight!
A micro-analysis of the fossil revealed that the dinosaur must have been a fully grown adult because of which the size of the dinosaur can be generalized to the average adult of the ancient dinosaur.
This amazing discovery is also indicative of the fact that flight was not restricted to smaller animals and even dinosaurs as big as the Changyuraptor experienced flight. Perhaps even larger flying dinosaurs existed millions of years ago?
Birds can now almost conclusively be called the descendants of dinosaurs but far more evidence is needed to completely understand the degree, detail and dynamics of dinosaur flight.