Dinosaur Fossil Bolsters Theory on Links to Birds

A 130-million-year-old newly discovered fossil of a small meat-eating dinosaur found in China is further proof of the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds, scientists say. “This animal is not a direct ancestor to birds but it is a very close cousin. It is from a group called troodontids which is closely related to birds,” Peter Makovicky of the Field Museum in Chicago reported in the Feb. 14 Nature.

The new dinosaur, called Sinovenator changii, was probably feathered and is almost the same age as the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx. Sinovenator was a two-legged predator like the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, but it was the size of a large chicken. It had a bird-like shoulder joint, a wishbone and a pelvic bone that points backward, similar to modern birds.

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Compiled by Times staff writer Thomas H. Maugh II