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China’s Feathered Dinosaurs
Protarchaeopteryx
(Prote-ark-ee-OP-ter-iks = “first ancient wing”)
120 to 150 million years before present
Yixian Formation
Sihetun, Liaoning Province, China
National Geological Museum of China
CLOSE WINDOW
of this feathered dinosaur show that important parts of the avian flight stroke did not evolve for
flight, but for seizing prey.
Known only from a single, maddeningly incomplete specimen, Protarchaeopteryx is the most poorly
known theropod at the Liaoning site. While it is not as modified as Caudipteryx, there are nevertheless
some shared new features, including general skull form and short tail, suggesting that they could be
closely related. Like the ancestral dinosaur, Sinosauropteryx, Caudipteryx and Protarchaeopteryx
have powerfully developed hind limbs.