This Strange, Feathered Dinosaur May Have Glided Between Trees Like a Flying Squirrel to Hunt Birds 120 Million Years Ago

A fossil of the creature provides the first evidence that microraptors lived in what is now northwestern China. Its discovery might also solve an ancient murder mystery

Sara Hashemi | Daily Correspondent

June 25, 2026 12:04 p.m.

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About 120 million years ago, a weird, feathered dinosaur may have glided between trees in what is now northwestern China. Today, its remains might solve a murder mystery that has long stumped scientists.

A fossil of the odd creature was unearthed at a site littered with ancient bird bones, many of which are clumped in what resembles pellets coughed up by modern owls. Paleontologists had long suspected that a predator must have hunted the birds, but no one had found evidence of it.

Now, they may have identified the culprit: a newly described species called Jian changmaensis.

The dinosaur belonged to a group of velociraptor relatives known as microraptors. The work, published in the Annals of Carnegie Museum on June 4, marks the first clear evidence of microraptors outside of northeastern China and, even though the new species is a non-avian dinosaur, could help uncover the evolution of birds.

“Scientists have found these weird, broken-up clusters of bird bones at this site, and we didn’t know what made them. This new microraptor dinosaur, Jian changmaensis, is our best guess,” says Jingmai O’Connor, a study co-author and vertebrate paleontologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, in a statement. “It’s the only dinosaur found at this site that wasn’t a bird. It was a carnivore, and it was much bigger than everything else that we’ve found there.”

Jian changmaensis’ name is a reference to its bird-like appearance and origins. Jian is a one-winged bird in Chinese mythology, and the fossil was found in the Changma Basin in the northwestern part of the Gansu province.

First described in a study published in 2010, the new species’ fossil consists of shoulder and arm bones. Three features revealed that the remains belonged to a creature that had never been described, according to O’Connor and her colleagues. A shoulder structure called the coracoid is proportionally longer than that of other microraptors. Rounded protrusions called condyles, which help form the elbow, on the humerus arm bone are also different, as is a hole in the radius arm bone, which was a passageway for blood vessels and other structures.

Although the dinosaurs weren’t birds, “these features are very bird-like,” O’Connor tells Science News’ Aaron Tremper.

The team estimates that Jian changmaensis was around the size of a barn owl and had long feathers on its arms and legs, giving it the appearance of having four wings. But paleontologists suspect that microraptors, including this one, couldn’t actually fly.

“These things probably lived on the ground, but some probably could climb and glided from tree to tree, almost like a modern flying squirrel,” says Matt Lamanna, a study co-author and vertebrate paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, to Ashley Strickland at CNN.

Beyond possibly pinpointing the ancient bird hunter, the discovery expands the geographic range of microraptors. “It’s a new record from that particular ancient ecosystem, which is exciting,” says Michael Pittman, a paleontologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who was not involved in the new research, to Science News.

Knowing where and when such creatures existed helps researchers map out the evolution of birds. “You cannot understand life on the planet today without looking at its origins,” O’Connor says in the statement.

“Birds are arguably the most successful group of land-dwelling vertebrate animals on Earth today,” she adds. “Learning about early birds and their close non-bird dinosaur relatives gives us a better understanding of what made the group of birds that survived so special.”

Sara Hashemi | Read More

Sara Hashemi is a science writer and fact-checker currently based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Sierra, The Body, Maisonneuve magazine and more.