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Thursday, January 23, 2003
vanaii
inues
'our-winged dino
ossils discovered
ig from a m
• west side p|
LIAONING (AP) - Fossil
unters in China have discov-
red what may be one of the
eirdest prehistoric species ever
en — a four-winged dinosaur
at apparently glided from tree
tree.
The 128-niillion-year-oId
. . —..imal — called Microraptor
the same tim*. . , f • ,
, • „ . lui. in honor t)t C hmese paleon-
began inflatintl. . ^ ^u- u .
. .^pogist Gu Zhiwei was about
unit area nsil.S , t ^ u j .
the calde ■ “ ' ee on ® aiK lat wo sels
*”^1 feathered wings, with one set
n its forelimbs and the other on
s hind legs.
Exactly where the creature
ts into the evolution of birds
hd dinosaurs is not clear. But
esearchers speculated that it
leveloped around the same time
or even later than the first
Iwo-wing, birdlike dinosaur.
Four-winged dino
The fossil of a 128-million-year-
old dinosaur was found in
China, v"'^
r7
suggest swelfe
a reservoir wilt
mo, researche;
her’s Day flon
spectacular«
Kilauea. exct|
ren preceded h
hs of inflation.'
“If it's not coil
geophysical evi-
:>ws the twovol-
immunicating"
mulations anc
ring determine;
bility of a coil
less than one ie
aid.
rs said there ait
is kind of tfc t |rchaeopteryx, which is
dieved to have flown by actu-
lly flapping its wings.
Paleontologists were
ntrigued by the discovery. They
ave seen gliding dinosaurs
icfore. but never one with feath-
rs. And they have never seen a
our-winged dinosaur before.
It would be a total oddity
MONGOLIA
o
Beijing
CHINA
Liaoning
province
fossil site
» N KOREA
S. KOpJ=A
East ^
i China
Sea
0
JAPAN
500 mi
500 km
nt connectici
oleanoes.
y of thinkinj
... Mauna Lot
rte and on Mai
explanations fix “ the weirdest creature in the
orld of dinosaurs and birds,”
aid Luis Chiappe. a paleontolo-
ist at the Natural History
luseum of Los Angeles
bounty who did not participate
1 its neighbc 1 the dig
h pushed it ovr
that caused tlx
event,” he said
■ hypothesis is
magma entered
oa and actual!},
ling by Kilauei
auea and
ure — it sprung
iffect, and the
event ensued.'
to tell whether
. have occunee
Scientists said the fossils —
liscovered in the Chinese
rovince of Liaoning, northeast
f Beijing, at a site that has
ielded several important speci-
tens in recent years — revive a
ebate between two theories of
ow dinosaurs might have
volved into birds.
One theory holds that some
f these apparent bird ancestors
:amed to flap their wings to
lower flight while they were
jse equipmer: Eliding from tree to tree. The
lay— include| 0th ? r . theory suggests they
onitoring to f| y b Y increasing
ning devices- t ^ ;ir runn ing speed with their
than anythin:i in 8 s and taking off from the
st, Cervelli sai;'| ri)Unt ^
I The latest find tends to sup-
ion the gliding-in-trees theory.
I “It’s a phenomenal find,”
fhiappe said. “We don’t have
lything that resembles this in
ie whole dinosaur and bird
ectrum.”
Details of the fossils appear
Thursday’s issue of the jour-
Nature.
Paleontologist Xing Xu of
e Institute of Vertebrate
laleontology and
[aleoanthropology at the
hinese Academy of Sciences
lescribed six fossils with leg
athers arranged in a pattern
milarto wing feathers in mod-
|m birds.
“They are long and some
ave asymmetrical vanes like
ight feathers,” Xu said.
The feathered legs amount to
ar wings, Xu said. He specu-
ted they could have represent-
d an intermediate stage of
ievelopment before the emer-
>e
refits)
nese fields:
ion, health,
and Dental,
itry, Student Loaf
>n Jacob, .
434-
SOURCE S: Nature; E SRI A P
gence of true flight powered by
flapping the wings. Or. the
feathered legs could have been
an evolutionary dead end, other
researchers said.
Scientists believe
Microraptor gui probably did
not fly by flapping its wings,
because of the way the rear legs
are set in the hip sockets and
because the rear legs probably
would have encountered turbu
lence from flapping front wings.
That suggests instead that both
sets of wings were used just for
gliding, Chiappe said.
Other scientists said the fos
sils add diversity to the story of
flight, even if they do not imme
diately provide answers.
Ken Dial, head of a biologi
cal flight laboratory at the
University of Montana, said
there is room for both gliding
and flapping dinosaurs in evolu
tionary hi^bry,
“Gliding represents a splen
did example of convergent evo
lution,” Dial said. “We should
not be surprised to unearth glid
ing dinosaurs as we have
numerous living-day examples
of gliders in nearly all the verte
brate groups — reptiles, mam
mals, birds and even parachut
ing amphibians.”
Last week. Dial reported in
the journal Science that the way
young birds such as turkeys and
quail use their wings suggests
ancient birds eventually learned
to fly by running and flapping.
Paul Sereno, a University of
Chicago paleontologist, said the
best way to determine whether
Microraptor gui was an inter
mediate stage in bird evolution
or a dead end is to find other
dinosaur fossils with feathered
legs.
Sereno called the Xu study a
landmark paper but added:
“Whether this represents an
intermediate form that all birds
passed through is a question
that’s going to be hotly debated.”
ight!!
0:00 prti\
ks
NEWS IN BRIEF
ndian sari cloth helps clean drinking water
WASHINGTON (AP) — Simply filtering water through old sari fabric
ay be enough to reduce cholera cases by about half in rural vil-
iges in Bangladesh, researchers say.
In a study appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National
cademy of Sciences, scientists filtered pond and river water
rough nylon mesh and through old, much-washed sari cloth. They
onduded that the sari solution worked best and could save lives in
I illages where the waterborne disease annually sickens many thou-
|ands of people.
"Sari cloth is cheaper and we found that it is much more effective
han the nylon mesh," said Rita R. Colwell, a professor of microbi-
ilogy at the University of Maryland, College Park, and primary
uthor of the study.
Colwell said researchers discovered in laboratory studies that
ost of the cholera bacteria in ponds, rivers and other standing
ater is attached to or in the gut of a copepod, a type of zooplank-
on commonly found in standing water.
as
ight!!
) river.
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