Daurlong wangi holotype: (a) whole specimen, (b) skull, (c) detail of orbit region, (d) feather remains associated to the thoracic vertebrae, (e) frog skeleton. Scale bars – 20 mm in (b), 10 mm in (c). Image credit: Wang et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-24602-x.
SciNews has an article about the discovery of a new bird-like dinosaur. Daurlong wangi lived between 130 and 120 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period in what in now China. It was a dromaeosaur of medium size bird-like dinosaur. The animal, part of the famous Jehol Biota, was described in a paper, which appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Dromaeosauridae is a clade of small- to mid-sized theropod dinosaurs known from the Cretaceous of both hemispheres,” said Dr. Xuri Wang from the Institute of Geology at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and colleagues.
“The Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota from north-eastern China has provided a rich diversity of dromaeosaurids, the majority of which referred to Microraptorinae.”
“Their abundance, when not due to taxonomic oversplitting, may be ecologically explained assuming niche segregation and avoidance of direct resource competition,” they added.
The paleontologists described Daurlong wangi from an almost complete skeleton found at the Pigeon Hill locality of the Longjiang Formation in Inner Mongolia.
