A fossil Microraptor gui from northeastern China--still a dinosaur despite winglike feathers on all four limbs--has bird bones in its abdomen, report Jingmai O'Connor and her colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. The position of the bird feet and partial wing suggest the dinosaur swallowed a now-extinct, tree-perching bird whole, the researchers contend in the Dec. 6 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They propose that Microraptor (shown dining in illustration above) frequented trees and hunted deftly enough to snag what was probably an adult bird.
Possible, but not the only possibility, cautions paleontologist Jerry D. Harris of Dixie State College in St. George, Utah. Structure analyses of Microraptor and its relatives suggest ground-based hunting. Today's cats certainly get into trees, and perching birds visit the ground, Harris says, but "bird remains in a cat's guts don't mean that it was hunting and catching birds in trees."
Milius, Susan
Source Citation
Milius, Susan. "Feathered dino feasted on birds." Science News 14 Jan. 2012: 13. General Science Collection. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA277674848&v=2.1&u=22054_acld&it=r&p=PPGS&sw=w
Gale Document Number: GALE|A277674848
A fossil Microraptor gui from northeastern China--still a dinosaur despite winglike feathers on all four limbs--has bird bones in its abdomen, report Jingmai O'Connor and her colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. The position of the bird feet and partial wing suggest the dinosaur swallowed a now-extinct, tree-perching bird whole, the researchers contend in the Dec. 6 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They propose that Microraptor (shown dining in illustration above) frequented trees and hunted deftly enough to snag what was probably an adult bird.
Possible, but not the only possibility, cautions paleontologist Jerry D. Harris of Dixie State College in St. George, Utah. Structure analyses of Microraptor and its relatives suggest ground-based hunting. Today's cats certainly get into trees, and perching birds visit the ground, Harris says, but "bird remains in a cat's guts don't mean that it was hunting and catching birds in trees."
Milius, Susan
Source Citation
Milius, Susan. "Feathered dino feasted on birds." Science News 14 Jan. 2012: 13. General Science Collection. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA277674848&v=2.1&u=22054_acld&it=r&p=PPGS&sw=w
Gale Document Number: GALE|A277674848
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