Science & Technology

‘Bizarre’ long-legged bird-like dinosaur has scientists enthralled

Published

2 years ago

September 7, 2023

About 148 to 150 million years ago, a strange pheasant-sized and bird-like dinosaur with elongated legs and arms built much like wings inhabited southeastern China, with a puzzling anatomy suggesting it either was a fast runner or lived a lifestyle like a modern wading bird.

Scientists said on Wednesday they have unearthed in Fujian Province the fossil of a Jurassic Period dinosaur they named Fujianvenator prodigiosus – a creature that sheds light on a critical evolutionary stage in the origin of birds, Reuters reported.

The question of whether Fujianvenator, with its curious mixture of skeletal features, should be classified as a bird depends on how one defines a bird, according to study leader Min Wang, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Asked for a word to describe Fujianvenator, Wang replied, “I would say ‘bizarre.’ Fujianvenator is far from similar to any modern birds.”

A remarkable event in dinosaur evolution came when small feathered two-legged dinosaurs from a lineage known as theropods gave rise to birds late in the Jurassic, with the oldest-known bird – Archaeopteryx – dating to roughly 150 million years ago in Germany.

Fujianvenator is a member of a grouping called avialans that includes all birds and their closest non-avian dinosaur relatives, Wang said. Despite their modest beginnings, birds survived the asteroid strike 66 million years ago that doomed their non-avian dinosaur comrades.

The Fujianvenator fossil, discovered last October, is fairly complete but lacks the animal’s skull and parts of its feet, making it hard to interpret its diet and lifestyle.

Fujianvenator’s lower leg bone – the tibia – was twice as long as its thigh bone – the femur. Such dimensions are unique among theropods, a group that includes all the meat-eating dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus and various others. It also had a long bony tail.

“The forelimb is generally built like a bird’s wing, but with three claws on the fingers, which are absent from modern birds. So you can call it wing. It cannot be determined whether it could fly or not. Based on the skeletal features, Fujianvenator probably is at least not good at flying,” Wang said.

“The fossil itself does not preserve feathers. However, its closest relatives and nearly all the known avialan theropods have feathers, and feathers are widely distributed among dinosaurs. Therefore, it would not be a surprise if Fujianvenator had feathers,” Wang added.

Based on the anatomy of its long legs, the researchers proposed two possible lifestyles – either fast running or wading in a swampy environment much like modern cranes or herons.

“I would put my money on runner,” Wang said.

Scientists are seeking a better understanding of the origin of birds as well as non-avian dinosaurs with bird-like traits.

“To me, Fujianvenator represents another interesting piece of evidence showing the wide distribution of various bird-like dinosaurs living nearly at the same time and sharing similar habitats with their bird descendants,” said paleontologist Zhonghe Zhou of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, a co-author of the study published in the journal Nature.

The earliest chapters in the history of birds remain murky due to the paucity of fossils. After Archaeopteryx – a crow-sized bird with teeth, a long bony tail and no beak whose fossils were first found in the 19th century – there is a canyon of about 20 million years before the next birds appear in the fossil record.

“One thing is for sure. There is still a big gap between the oldest known bird and the second-oldest known birds,” Zhou said.

Related Topics:#WorldCupTrophy ArianaNews Cricket ICC

Up Next

Four ancient Roman swords discovered in Dead Sea cave in Israel

Don't Miss

China bans government officials from using iPhones for work

Science & Technology

Saudi crown prince launches new company to develop AI technologies

U.S. President Donald Trump travels to Saudi Arabia this week, the first stop on his Gulf tour, and AI is expected to be a major discussion point during Tuesday’s joint Saudi-U.S. investment forum in Riyadh.

Published

1 week ago

May 13, 2025

Ariana News

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a new company to develop and manage artificial intelligence technologies in Saudi Arabia on Monday, a top priority of its economic diversification drive, Reuters reported.

The kingdom, the world’s biggest crude exporter, is undergoing a significant economic and social transformation under its Vision 2030 programme which aims to wean the economy off its oil dependency.

It wants to develop AI technology and infrastructure – including data centres – and has ambitions to establish the kingdom as a global centre for AI, pitching itself as a prospective hub for AI activity outside the United States, read the report.

Chaired by bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, the new company, Humain, will operate under the Public Investment Fund, and offer AI services and products, including data centres, AI infrastructure, cloud capabilities and advanced AI models, the state news agency reported.

Earlier this year, cloud software seller Salesforce (CRM.N), said that it planned to invest $500 million in Saudi Arabia related to artificial intelligence.

Science & Technology

Skype ends operations after 22 years of service

Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 and says the decision is part of a strategy to focus on its other platform, Microsoft Teams.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 7, 2025

Ariana News

Skype officially shut down on Monday. The closure comes after nearly 22 years in operation, during which Skype became known for making international voice and video calls accessible and affordable for millions of people worldwide.

Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 and says the decision is part of a strategy to focus on its other platform, Microsoft Teams.

Launched in 2003, Skype quickly became a revolutionary tool for free voice and video calls over the internet, amassing more than 300 million monthly users at its peak in the mid-2010s. The free platform changed how people communicated across borders, long before Zoom or FaceTime.

In 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5bn, aiming to make it a central part of its communications strategy. But as competitors like WhatsApp, Zoom, and eventually Microsoft’s own Teams gained traction, Skype’s popularity faded.

On February 28, Microsoft said it would retire Skype on May 5 to streamline its services and prioritise Teams for communication and collaboration.

Microsoft has urged users to transition to Teams by visiting skype.com and utilising the “Start using Teams” feature. All Skype chats and contacts will remain accessible through Teams using the same login credentials.

Science & Technology

Apple moving to make most iPhones for US in India rather than China

Published

3 weeks ago

April 26, 2025

Ariana News

Apple aims to make most of its iPhones sold in the United States at factories in India by the end of 2026, and is speeding up those plans to navigate potentially higher tariffs in China, its main manufacturing base, Reuters reported.

The U.S. tech giant is holding urgent talks with contract manufacturers Foxconn and Tata to achieve that goal, the person, who declined to be named as the planning process is confidential, said on Friday.

Apple and Foxconn did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while Tata declined to comment.

Apple sells over 60 million iPhones in the U.S. annually with roughly 80% of them made in China currently.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has in recent years promoted India as a smartphone manufacturing hub, but higher duties on importing mobile phone parts compared to many other countries means it is still expensive for companies to produce in India.

For iPhones, manufacturing costs in India are 5-8% higher than in China, with the difference rising to as much as 10% in some cases, the source said.

Apple has already stepped up production in India to beat U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, shipping some 600 tons of iPhones worth $2 billion to the United States in March. The shipments from India marked a record for both its contractors Tata and Foxconn, with the latter alone accounting for smartphones worth $1.3 billion, Reuters reported last week.

In April, the U.S. administration imposed 26% duties on imports from India, much lower than the more than 100% China was facing at the time. Washington has since paused most duties for three months, except for China.

Trump’s administration has since signalled openness to de-escalating the trade war between the world’s two largest economies that has raised fears of recession.

The Financial Times first reported about Apple’s plan on Friday.

As Apple diversifies its manufacturing beyond China, it has positioned India for a critical role. Foxconn and Tata, its two main suppliers there, have three factories in all, with two more being built.