Another Missing Link Discovered

You have to love the Chinese paleontology public relations folks. They are very good at producing exciting news with wonderfully colorful illustrations. Take their latest claims for the discovery of a new fossil species that appears to link the dinosaurs to the birds, quite directly.

This new dinosaur species is named, informally “Hushiyaolong.” It is said to be rather closely related to birds. “Hushiyaolong” or scientifically, Epidexipteryx hui (Hu Yaoming’s Display Feather), was discovered by scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology with the Chinese Academy of Science.

Epidexipteryx was a pigeon-sized dinosaur covered in a fluffy feather coat, although it did not possess any contour feathers that would have enabled it to fly. But two pairs of long ribbon-like plumes were found on the fossil remains showing they fanned out from the tip of its rather short tail, and were presumably used for some sort of display. Also this bird had enlarged, forward-curving front teeth.

“Its describers suggest that Epidexipteryx was related to the long-fingered Epidendrosaurus, and that these unusual little dinosaurs are examples of a previously unknown diversity of theropods near the origin of birds,” summarized Matt Celeskey, from the first publication.

The “Hushiyaolong” is named after “Hu Yaoming,” a young deceased Chinese paleomammalogist. According to the Chinese media, great emphasis is being made on the finding that this new species connecting birds to dinosaurs offers new evidence to uncover the mysterious origin of birds, their flight and feathers.

The announcement was published in the latest issue of the British journal Nature.

The fossil specimen of Epidexipteryx hui has been exhibited at the Paleozoological Museum of China, beginning on October 25, 2008. The tail fossils are especially noted above.

The Hushiyaolong, Epidexipteryx hui, lived during the Jurassic period (between 208 and 144 million years ago) and belongs to the Avialae group. The creature had a body length of over 40 centimeters and four 20-centimeter-long ribbon-like tail feathers. Except the tail feather, it did not have any other feathers with a structure similar to that of birds’ flight feathers; so it could not fly.

Epidexipteryx hui use to live in what today is Inner Mongolia, northern China.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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