Respect For The Biplane Dino
By Faith Smith
Float like a biplane, sting like a hungry carnivorous beast - the new slogan for microraptors everywhere!
A new species of flying dinosaur has been found in Liaoning Province, China which, with its unique design and fighting (or rather hunting) skills, is surely as deserving of its own legendary slogan as Mohammed Ali.
Scientists believe that Microraptor must have hunted by spreading out its four "wings" - feather-covered hands and legs - and dropping down from perches to surprise prey from above. Although the 2.5 foot long tree-dweller could only cover a distance of around 40 metres, it must have had quite an advantage over its terrestrial cousins.
The dinosaur's unique design applies the same principles as the Wright brothers used in 1903 to invent the first biplane. Also like the first plane, Microraptor had a long feathered tail offering additional flight and stability and controlled pitch.
Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University and Canadian collaborator Jack Templin, authors of the study into the fossils, offer this flight mechanism as an alternative to studies which concluded such dinosaurs flew more like a dragonfly - spreading their legs out laterally and maintaining their wings in a tandem pattern.
Chetterjee and Templin reckon that the dragonfly theory would not have given the dinosaur suitable lift or enabled it to walk on the ground.
By using the four-wing design to glide, Microraptor would not only have been efficient hunters but also would have conserved great amounts of energy to keep fighting another day.
Maybe the slogan needs some work, but these tiny dinos have further shown scientists just how diverse the birds ancient ancestors are.
Unfortunately we're too impecunious to get an artist's impression of Microraptor. There is a small one of available on the pages of the rich, yet inferior, BBC website. But please don't spend too long there.
A new species of flying dinosaur has been found in Liaoning Province, China which, with its unique design and fighting (or rather hunting) skills, is surely as deserving of its own legendary slogan as Mohammed Ali.
Scientists believe that Microraptor must have hunted by spreading out its four "wings" - feather-covered hands and legs - and dropping down from perches to surprise prey from above. Although the 2.5 foot long tree-dweller could only cover a distance of around 40 metres, it must have had quite an advantage over its terrestrial cousins.
The dinosaur's unique design applies the same principles as the Wright brothers used in 1903 to invent the first biplane. Also like the first plane, Microraptor had a long feathered tail offering additional flight and stability and controlled pitch.
Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University and Canadian collaborator Jack Templin, authors of the study into the fossils, offer this flight mechanism as an alternative to studies which concluded such dinosaurs flew more like a dragonfly - spreading their legs out laterally and maintaining their wings in a tandem pattern. Chetterjee and Templin reckon that the dragonfly theory would not have given the dinosaur suitable lift or enabled it to walk on the ground.
By using the four-wing design to glide, Microraptor would not only have been efficient hunters but also would have conserved great amounts of energy to keep fighting another day.
Maybe the slogan needs some work, but these tiny dinos have further shown scientists just how diverse the birds ancient ancestors are.
Unfortunately we're too impecunious to get an artist's impression of Microraptor. There is a small one of available on the pages of the rich, yet inferior, BBC website. But please don't spend too long there.
Image: SCX
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