|
|
|
Microraptor
Click here for more Microraptor Pictures
Microraptor was a very small dinosaur that lived in
Northeast China
during the Cretaceous period,
about 120 million years ago.
The initial discovery and naming of Microraptor was somewhat controversial.
It was initially described based on a patchwork of unrelated dinosaur
fossils
that had been attached to each other (a "chimeric" specimen) to produce
a forgery, and this forgery had been smuggled from
China to the
United States.
It turned out however that within the forgery were the first
fossils
of Microraptor (other fossils have
subsequently been found).
Microraptor has feathers, and is unusual as it has flight feathers on both its arms/hands and
on its legs/feet (it also had feathers on its body, and a diamond-shaped group of feathers on
its tail). It is not entirely clear how it used these feathers, and scientists have debated
whether the animal parachuted from trees or was able to take off from groudn. What is
certain, is that in flight it would have used all four wings. We do not currently know
whether this is a side branch in the evolution of birds, or whether bird ancestors developed
flight through an early four-winged stage (as early as
1915 some paleontologists suggested that birds may have had yet-to-be-discovered four-winged ancestor,
which they named "Tetrapteryx").
Microraptor was a carnivore (meat-eater) that lived about 120 million years ago
Related Information & Resources
See Also
Microraptor Facts
Here is a summary of some of the key facts about Microraptor:
- Microraptor was a genus of dinosaur.
- "Microraptor" means "small thief".
- Microraptor was a member of the Saurischia ("lizard-hipped") order of dinosaurs. What this means, is that although Microraptor was not closely related to lizards, it did have similarly shaped pelvic bones.
- Microraptor was a Theropod - a member of a group of related bipedal dinosaurs that included the ancestors of birds (although Microraptor was not itself an ancestor of birds).
- Microraptor lived about 120 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period.
- Microraptor lived in Northeast China.
- Microraptor was a carnivore (meat-eater).
- Microraptor was about 1½ to 2¾ feet (46 to 84 centimeters) long.
- Microraptor weighed up to 2¼ pounds (1 kilogram).
|
|
Microraptor Books
Here are some books from Amazon.com:
Disclosure: Products details and descriptions provided by Amazon.com. Our company may receive a payment if you purchase products from them after following a link from this website.
By Joe Lillington
Flying Eye Books
Released: 2016-10-11
Hardcover (40 pages)
 | List Price: $17.95*
Lowest New Price: $11.42*
Lowest Used Price: $2.79*
Usually ships in 24 hours*
*(As of 07:26 Pacific 18 Apr 2019 More Info)
Click Here | Product Description:
It was a very special day for Neffy the Microraptor—she would be taking her first flight. But when Neffy spread her wings she didn't know what she was supposed to do! Will she learn in time to join her sisters and escape the predators on the ground?
In this informative and fact-based story, Joe Lillington takes the reader back to the time of dinosaurs as we follow young Neffy in her first attempt at flying. Along the way, she meets other friendly dinosaurs (and some not so friendly ones), all illustrated in Lillington's beautiful style full of character. |
|
By Don Lessem
Millbrook Press TM
Released: 2013-08-01
Kindle Edition (40 pages)
 | | Product Description:
"Dino" Don Lessem brings readers face-to-face with various dinosaur species, detailing their habitats, way of life and how they became extinct. An acclaimed dinosaur expert, Don Lessem has written more than 30 children's books, writes a popular dinosaur column in Highlights magazine, and was an adviser for Jurassic Park. Take a trip through dinosaur time to meet these deadly dinosaurs face-to-face: The Variraptor had pointy teeth with grooves like steak knives to saw through meat! The Draeomaeosaurus was the first raptor ever discovered. It had a very large brain! The Microraptor was no larger than a crow and is the closet known relative to birds! Plus, you'll get to know Utahraptor, Deinonychus, Megaraptor, Pytoraptor, and Velociraptor. |
|
By Don Lessem
Millbrook Press TM
Released: 2013-08-01
Kindle Edition (32 pages)
 | | Product Description:
"Dino" Don Lessem brings readers face-to-face with various dinosaur species, detailing their habitats, way of life and how they became extinct. An acclaimed dinosaur expert, Don Lessem has written more than 30 children's books, writes a popular dinosaur column in Highlights magazine, and was an adviser for Jurassic Park. Take a trip through dinosaur time to meet these smart dinosaurs face-to-face: Troodon were the smartest dinosaurs! They would dig their prey (small rodents) out of the ground and could predict the movements of bugs! Giganotosaurus can recognize many dinosaurs from very far away by their smell! The Deinonychus worked together to sneak up on and surround their prey! Plus, you'll get to know Gallimimus, Laellynasaura, Microraptor, and Tyrannosaurus Rex! |
|
By Federico Agnolin
Brand: Springer
Released: 2013-02-27
Paperback (108 pages)
 | List Price: $69.99*
Lowest New Price: $56.43*
Lowest Used Price: $55.93*
Usually ships in 24 hours*
*(As of 07:26 Pacific 18 Apr 2019 More Info)
Click Here | - Used Book in Good Condition
Product Description:
Although consensus exists among researchers that birds evolved from coelurosaurian theropods, paleontologists still debate the identification of the group of coelurosaurians that most closely approaches the common ancestor of birds. The last 20 years witnessed the discovery of a wide array of avian-like theropods that has considerably amplified the anatomical disparity among deinonychosaurians, some of which resemble Archaeopteryx more than Deinonychus. Among these newly discovered theropods that show remarkable bird-like characteristics are the four-winged theropods Microraptor and Anchiornis, and the unenlagiids Unenlagia, Buitreraptor, and Rahonavis. A bizarre group of minute-sized coelurosaurs, the Scansoriopterygidae, also exhibits some avian similarities that lead some authors to interpret them as more closely related to birds than other dinosaurs. With the aim to explore the phylogenetic relationships of these coelurosaurians and birds, we merged recently published integrative databases, resulting in significant changes in the topological distribution of taxa within Paraves. We present evidence that Dromaeosauridae, Microraptoria, Unenlagiidae, and Anchiornis + Xiaotingia form successive sister taxa of Aves, and that the Scansoriopterygidae are basal coelurosaurians not closely related to birds. The implications in the evolutionary sequence of anatomical characters leading to birds, including the origin of flight, are also considered in light of this new phylogenetic hypothesis. |
|
By Don Lessem
Little Brown & Co
Hardcover (32 pages)
 | List Price: $14.95*
Lowest New Price: $34.33*
Lowest Used Price: $0.55*
Usually ships in 1-2 business days*
*(As of 07:26 Pacific 18 Apr 2019 More Info)
Click Here | Product Description:
Historical photographs and bright paintings bring to life raptors, the least known member of the dinosaur family, for young readers while a factual text discusses and describes these carnivorous creatures, their habits, and recent advances in dinosaur paleontology. |
|
Paperback
 | Lowest New Price: $23.71*
Usually ships in 1-2 business days*
*(As of 07:26 Pacific 18 Apr 2019 More Info)
Click Here |
|
By Rebecca Rissman
Capstone Press
Library Binding (32 pages)
 | List Price: $27.99*
Lowest New Price: $14.98*
Lowest Used Price: $16.21*
Usually ships in 24 hours*
*(As of 07:26 Pacific 18 Apr 2019 More Info)
Click Here | Product Description:
Raptors like Velocirpator were small, deadly dinosaurs. These carnivores and omnivores may have looked like birds, but they couldn't get off the ground. Bold images, colorful maps, and interesting facts take readers back to a time when these deadly hunters walked the earth. |
|
By John Jackson
Released: 2013-12-23
Kindle Edition (386 pages)
 | | Product Description:
[NOTE TO CRITICS: If the science in this book is valid, so are the criticisms I make: bad science is propagated through failing to address the central scientific issues, and through blocking the views of those doing useful work. I invite any potential critics who can't cope with research-level science themselves but like the sound of their own voice, or want to pretend that I don't have science degrees and they do, or who are in love with the bad scientists I mention, to bolster my case by avoiding the scientific issues in their comments. They can complete the picture by commenting anonymously and invalidating any attack on my reputation by showing they lack one themselves!]
In this revolutionary 100k word book with 70 illustrations, John Jackson (artificial intelligence researcher, biological psychologist, and information scientist), brings long-overdue modern insights to a field he found stuck in the 1960’s. He clarifies the evolution of those feathered, fanged and strangely unfathomable stars of evolution, and provides a sorely-needed 14-point definition of science. Landmarks in bird evolution are detailed, including a friendly, cogent, but fairly thorough explanation of the bizarre intricacies and evolution of bird breathing; new analysis and elucidation of the four-winged flying style of microraptors; an overdue decent experimental scientific analysis of the use of Velociraptor’s predatory foot claw (it WAS deadly after all); untying of the Gordian knot of the family tree of troodonts, dromaeosaurs, primitive birds... and feathers; a survey of current knowledge of bird families along with thoughts on their extinction and survival patterns; details of how to write cladogram (family tree) generating programs, along with some important new guidelines for that discipline; a guide to major currents in dinobird palaeontology over the last twenty years... and finally the strange revelations resulting from using 21st century philosophy of science on human and dog evolution.
Revealing the story of dinobird evolution requires competence in a variety of fields, yet most palaeontologists start work with only a geology degree. Wouldn’t a biological degree help when studying animals? (A bit, but it’s not enough.) And is the palaeontologists’ understanding of their computer program for discovering family relationships spoiled by their surprising lack of qualifications in statistical algorithms? Are they right to insist evolution always took the straightest possible line, or is that view due to incompetence in that field – not to mention others such as the philosophy of science? Is their failure to quote the jargon, essential concepts, and even key workers in the core disciplines underlying palaeontology, reason to doubt their judgement, or does a geology degree genuinely grant such superior insight into these other fields that specialists in them can be ignored?
For years, palaeontologists have shunned outside experts, claiming that they alone, through organising excavations, running museums and relying on a 50-year-old computerised algorithm, are the best interpreters of biological evolution. Journalists have pandered to the palaeontologists: the BBC has persistently ignored revolutions in three major branches of vertebrate palaeontology, never having mentioned Aaron Filler, Janice Koler-Matznick, or the theories or name of Greg Paul, the most exciting and insightful dinobird scientist for over 20 years, and peerless dinobird draughtsman. Jackson defends and builds on Paul’s work including art commissioned from him, and shows how part of Paul’s theory fits with part of an earlier one, long wrongly abused but here vindicated.
The author’s broad background in disciplines where getting your theories right matters, and his independence, allow the book to tidy old muddles, put palaeontology back on its feet, and point out genuine solutions to riddles of the evolution of humans, dogs, and of course dinobirds.
|
|
By Baby Professor
Baby Professor
Released: 2015-12-20
Kindle Edition (17 pages)
 | | Product Description:
There are animals that no longer live but have contributed greatly to the evolution of the world. It is not right to just forget about them. That is why this picture book is dedicated to some of the world's archaic animals. It's going to be blast to the past so get a copy of this book now! |
|
By S. H. et al. Hwang
American Museum of Natural History
Paperback
| |
|
Discuss This Page
Please feel free to post your comments:
Linking to This Page
We do hope that you find this site useful.
We welcome people linking to this website or citing us.
|
|
|
