A very tiny winged dinosaur has been discovered in China. It is a pterosaur, and although it has less than 30 cm wingspan, it is related to a family of dinosaurs that are as large as a small plane! It's largest relative has a 1o metre wingspan, and is the largest flying creature ever known.
Fossils of tiny dinosaurs have been found at other times, but they have always turned out to be hatchlings (newly hatched) that would have grown into large animals if they had lived. This one, however, is young, but fully grown. This new type of dinosaur has been called Nemicolopterus crypticus, which means "hidden flying creature of the forest", and the complete, fossilised skeleton is over 120 million years old. It has curved claws, which would have been used to perch on branches, and scientists believe that it lived in the middle canopy of the forest.
It was much too small to ever be scary enough to star in Jurassic Park, but this one and only Nemicolopterus crypticusit is still a very exciting find!
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