Scientists come to discover a new dinosaur with leathery bat wings

Holy tough membranes, Batman! An exquisite and fascinating fossil discovery in northern China has provided new evidence that some Jurassic dinosaurs have developed membranous wings like those of modern bats.

A complete analysis of the discovery, published May 8 in the journal Nature, details the new fossil that researchers named Ambopteryx longibranchium. The almost complete fossil was discovered in 2017 in a rock formation dating back 163 million years. The remains of the plumage and creature tissues have been well preserved, allowing researchers to slowly reconstruct the history and shape of the unusual dinosaur.

The researchers found soft tissues around the dinosaur's flanks and arms, showing that it had leathery skin folds that looked like wings. The fossil also contains a "styliform" – a long bone that extends from the wrist – providing further evidence that the membrane probably sank from Ambopteryx's flank at the end of his fingers.

Measuring approximately 13 inches in length, Ambopteryx would have inhabited the Jurassic trees and used its wings to sneak through the air rather than motorized flight. It belongs to a group of dinosaurs known as scansoriopterygids, all of which contain slender arms, but this is only the second fossil found in the group that contains the styliform bone.

This is important because it reinforces the case, the first fossil "bat-winged", located in 2015 and located just 50 kilometers away, was actually an advertising flyer. Nicknamed "Yi qi", the fossil was bizarre enough to divide the opinion of paleontologists about whether the creature had wings or not. We know that the dinosaurs eventually developed feather wings and became birds today, but apart from the Yi qi, there was no previous evidence in the fossil record suggesting this type of non-avian flight.

This makes Ambopteryx a powerful find, giving weight to the idea that Yi qi has indeed developed a distinct flight method, similar to that of pterosaurs but different from the line of dinosaurs that would eventually become birds. The membrane may even be present in previously discovered scansoriopterygid limbs, but it is currently believed that the other limbs had more wings in the form of a bird.