Microraptor's World
Four-winged dinosaur
Microraptor
Like other great discoveries in Liaoning over the past two
decades, Microraptor has transformed
scientific understanding and pop-culture imagery of what dinosaurs of the Early
Cretaceous looked like. Whereas we once might have envisioned smooth-skinned
reptiles plodding along the ground, we now can imagine sprightly, feathered
creatures gliding from tree to tree. Microraptor's ability to glide, and its exact flying form,
are still debated, but the notion of a flying feathered dinosaur isn't as
outlandish as it may have seemed a few decades ago.