Discovery of new bird winged dinosaur fossil "Strange Fujian Dragon" in China
In cooperation with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geological Survey of Fujian Province, dinosaur fossils were found for the first time in Fujian. Through research, it was confirmed that this fossil species was the bird winged dinosaur in the world's latest Jurassic period and the southernmost geographical position, between 148 million and 150 million years ago, and it was named "Strange Fujian Dragon". This achievement was published in the international academic journal Nature on the 6th.
The fossil was discovered in October 2022 in the Zhenghe Daxi Basin in northern Fujian. After nearly a year of restoration and analysis, the research team believes that the new species discovered this time has forelimbs similar to Archaeopteryx, relatively slender hind limbs, and a body shape between dinosaurs and birds. It is a small theropod dinosaur that is good at running or living by the water's edge, and named it "Strange Fujian Dragon".
Wang Min, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that "Qiufujiaosaurus belongs to a class of dinosaurs called 'ornithoptera' that lived in the late Jurassic. So far, the world has found very few ornithoptera dinosaur fossils in the entire Jurassic period, and only three places have such preservation, one is the Yanliao Biota in western Liaoning or Hebei in China, the other is Sorenhofen in Germany. Qiufujiaosaurus represents the third. Through the restoration of the global paleogeography of the entire Jurassic period, it is found that Qiufujiaosaurus represents the record of dinosaur fossils in the southernmost latitude of life".
Providing important information for studying the origin and evolution of birds
It is reported that ornithoptera is a transitional species that evolved from dinosaurs to birds. The earliest discovered ornithoptera in China was in the Yanliao Biota, approximately 160 million years ago. Later, the earliest primitive bird fossils discovered in the Rehe Biota were around 130 million years ago, with a gap of approximately 30 million years in their evolutionary process. Xu Liming, a senior engineer at the Fujian Geological Survey and Research Institute, stated that after research, it has been determined that the Qiqifujianlong is between 148 million and 150 million years ago. Therefore, the discovery of Qiqifujianlong fills some of the gaps in the temporal and spatial origins of birds, providing important information for studying the origin and evolution of birds.
In addition to the strange Fujian dragon, the inspection team also discovered a large number of well preserved reptile fossils from the same period as the strange Fujian dragon, including aquatic/semi aquatic turtles and ceratopsians. Researchers named it the "Zhenghe Fauna", which is currently the southernmost known group of bird winged animals in the late Jurassic period globally.
