Meet Ambopteryx!

[suspsy]

Yi qi has a flying buddy!

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/05/ambopteryx-new-species-bat-wing-dinosaur-discovered-china/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=facebook::cmp=editorial::add=fb20190508science-batwingeddino::rid=&sf212349163=1

[ceratopsian]

Very exciting and satisfying to have corroboration of the original interpretation of Yi's wing structure.

[ITdactyl]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uamQubNzb1Q

'video has a brief discussion of the find, and a short animation of the animal gliding from a tree.  The animated model is ok, the glide pattern - not so much.

[Halichoeres]

The preservation is insane. Nice to have corroboration for the wing-membrane hypothesis so quickly. I guess this suggests Epidexipteryx probably had something similar going on, even though the crazy wrist bone isn't preserved.

Paper seems to be open access, by the way: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1137-z

[Shonisaurus]

From what you see the dinosaurs had their Yi qi and ambopteryx (flying dinosaurs) the equivalent of today's bats.

[Ravonium]

Excellent find, especially preservation-wise. This and Callichimaera are good signs that 2019 is going to be yet another excellent year for paleontology. Additionally, as ceratopsian says, it's good corroborating evidence of Yi's wing structure.

[ITdactyl]

On one hand:
Loving this crazy mess of evolution - with small theropods 'evolving' different types of 'wings' and using them in different ways.  Sure, Ambopteryx is not a transitional species, but do we really still need those?  We already have a nice snapshot of branches being pruned off the tree of life (in a manner of speaking, I'm not suggesting "intelligent design") - skin-wings coexisting with feathered wings, and then fading to extinction.  Same with toothed and fully beaked 'birds'.

On the other hand:
All reconstructions I've seen have a rather narrow wing chord.  I wonder how effective those (really) are as gliding surfaces.  Considering all the tests done with Microraptor before, I hope people also start the same mechanical tests with Scansoriopterygids (oof, that was a mouthful).

[Faelrin]

It is so cool that we have not one, but two of these critters discovered in only the span of a couple of years apart, while also further supporting that the holotype fossil of Yi was not a fluke, in regard to those odd wrist rods, membranous wings aside.