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An illustration of Jian changmaensis (left) attacking the ancient bird Gansus yumenensis (right) in the Changma Basin of northwestern China around 120 million years ago.(Image credit: Illustration by Lewis LaRosa, colorized by Jão Canola.)Share this article 0Join the conversationFollow usAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleSubscribe to our newsletter
A recently unearthed feathered dinosaur, possessing four limb-like wings, may have traversed the lakeside woodlands of what is now northwestern China, gliding between trees much like a flying squirrel and snatching some of the earliest birds from the Cretaceous skies.
The predator, christened Jian changmaensis, was a close relation to Velociraptor and belonged to an unusual group of small, bird-like dinosaurs known as microraptors. In contrast to the large and scaly depiction of raptors found in “Jurassic Park,” these creatures were feathered, light in weight, and utilized gliding for locomotion. Fossil evidence suggests that J. changmaensis had elongated feathers on both its arms and legs, giving it the appearance of a miniature dragon with four wings.
The fossil, detailed on Thursday (June 4) in the journal Annals of Carnegie Museum, comprises merely a partial left shoulder and forelimb. Nevertheless, these skeletal elements were sufficient to identify a new dinosaur species, and potentially resolve a long-standing puzzle at China’s Changma Basin, a location rich with ancient bird fossils and fragmented bird bones that bear a striking resemblance to the pellets regurgitated by contemporary owls.
“Our team has unearthed over a hundred bird fossils at Changma, yet only this solitary non-avian dinosaur specimen,” stated study co-author Matthew Lamanna, a senior dinosaur researcher and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, in a press release.
“[Microraptors] offer insight into the characteristics of the closest ancestors of the initial birds,” he communicated to Live Science via email. “Their study provides clues regarding the origins of birds and the development of their flight capabilities.”
Finding a fossil among the fragments
Paleontologists discovered the fossil within the Lower Cretaceous Xiagou formation, in proximity to Changma village in the Gansu province. The geological strata there were deposited during the early Cretaceous period, approximately 124 to 120 million years ago, a time when the area featured a vast lake inhabited by birds, fish, turtles, and other ancient fauna.
This site is renowned for fossils of Gansus yumenensis, one of the earliest Mesozoic birds discovered in China. Since 2002, researchers have recovered more than 100 partial bird skeletons from Changma, including fossils exhibiting preserved soft tissues such as feathers, skin, and claw sheaths.
“Our subsequent expeditions throughout the remainder of the 2000s and into the 2010s confirmed Changma as one of the world’s premier fossil bird locations,” Lamanna remarked. “It was an incredible experience to be a part of.”
However, until this discovery, no non-avian dinosaur fossil had been found in the basin.
This is what made J. changmaensis so remarkable. Among the fossil debris, the specimen consisted of a fused shoulder blade, humerus, radius, and ulna. It was preserved in three dimensions, unlike many flattened microraptor fossils from the same region.
The fossilized arm bones of the new dinosaur Jian changmaensis.
(Image credit: Zhou et al (2026))
“Jian represents one of the largest microraptor specimens ever discovered,” said Jingmai O’Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles at the Field Museum in Chicago and a co-author of the study, in the statement. “The section of its upper arm bone we possess is approximately 4 inches [10 centimeters] in length, suggesting the entire dinosaur likely had a wingspan of about four feet [1.2 meters], comparable in size to a barn owl.”
Microraptors were not birds, but they were very closely related to the dinosaur lineage that eventually led to birds. Their anatomy includes features that appear to bridge the gap between birds and dinosaurs, such as claws, raptorial sickle-shaped feet, and feathers.
“This is fascinating, a new fossil of those dinosaurs that were essentially on the verge of becoming true birds,” Steve Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the research, commented to CNN.
The bird hunter
The Changma Basin might have served as a feeding ground for a tree-dwelling predator like J. changmaensis. The area was dominated by early avian species, as indicated by the numerous pellet-like fossil remains, which could represent the undigested remnants of the meals of the newly identified microraptor species.
Researchers cannot definitively confirm that Jian produced these pellets. However, it is the only non-avian dinosaur body fossil found at Changma to date. Furthermore, Jian was a carnivore and significantly larger than the birds preserved at the site.
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Additional microraptor fossils lend support to the notion that these dinosaurs consumed a diverse diet. Previously discovered fossilized specimens have contained the remains of fish, lizards, mammals, and birds within their digestive tracts, suggesting that microraptors were opportunistic hunters rather than specialized feeders.
For J. changmaensis, birds may have been particularly accessible prey. If the dinosaur inhabited trees and possessed gliding capabilities, it might have ambushed early birds from branches or navigated the forest canopy in a manner akin to a sugar glider, according to the research team.
“We have very little of Jian, only a few bones from the shoulder and forelimb,” Lamanna stated. “It’s sufficient to confirm the existence of this intriguing new microraptor that lived 120 million years ago in what is now northwestern China, but not enough to learn everything we desire about these dinosaurs. Perhaps one of your readers will eventually pursue paleontology and be the one to discover the remainder of Jian.”
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