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 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.
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