Tiny 160 mln year-old dinosaur with bat-like wings discovered in China

A new bat-like feathered dinosaur with wings made of skin discovered in China.

The newly-discovered dinosaur named "Yi qi" - Mandarin for "strange wing" must have been a tiny aviator weighing less than a pound i.e. 380 grams lived during the Jurassic Period 160 million years ago, the Mirror reported.

The scientists believed that bat-like feathered dinosaur resembles a cross between a bird and a bat was the product of one of nature's early experiments with flight.

Lead researcher Professor Xing Xu, from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing, said that they thought giving this animal a name meaning "strange wing" was appropriate, because no other bird or dinosaur has a wing of the same kind.

Yi qi belonged to a family of small feathered dinosaurs called scansoriopterygids which were related to the famous primitive bird Archaeopteryx.