Fossil of Gliding Lizard Found

6 inch long skeleton, the gliding lizard lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 150 million years ago.

The specimen, detailed Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is about 6 inches (15.5 centimeters) long, and its immature features suggest it died at a young age.

The fossil, described by Xing Xu of Shenyang Normal University in China and his colleagues, was discovered in northeastern China's Liaoning Province, a site that has yielded a treasure trove of feathered dinosaurs and early bird remains in recent years.
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Xianglong had curved claws that would have enabled it to dwell in treetops, from whose high perch it could launch into the air. Once airborne, the little lizard could probably glide farther than modern flying lizards, perhaps as far as half a football field at a time, Xu said.

Ummm...




www.msnbc.msn.com...

could Eary sightings of this creature by chinese ancestors have created the legend of the chinese dragon?

I would imagine that the fossils of feathered dinosaurs would do far more to inspire the lung legends

Plus these sorts of lizards are still around:




Members of the Draco genus of lizards. Neat little buggers

heres a pelagic sea slug, it looks like a dragon. but it doesn't glide, its just cool.

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
I would imagine that the fossils of feathered dinosaurs would do far more to inspire the lung legends

Plus these sorts of lizards are still around:




Members of the Draco genus of lizards. Neat little buggers

Those are obviously either 150 million year old lizards or else the picture is fake.....wait, maybe there is another option....perhaps the fossil isnt 150 million years old........

Originally posted by 11Bravo

Those are obviously either 150 million year old lizards or else the picture is fake.....wait, maybe there is another option....perhaps the fossil isnt 150 million years old........

No, it's a successful body plan that's been repeated a few times, with more than a few varieties. A long time before the fossil critter outlined in the article above was Kuehneosaurus, another rib-winged lizard. Three feet long, with one-foot "wings". Like Xianglong and Draco, it was a lizard. But these are three unrelated genera, separated by tens of millions of years of each other, developing a body plan.

This was very likely the exact same sort of body plan that led to pterosaurs and birds, and can be seen in modern species such as the flying snake, sugar gliders, flying squirrels, etc.

It's a body plan that works well in an aboreal forest environment, much as the "streamlined" shape is used by all major marine predators - large squid, sharks, icthyosaurs, and dolphins all have more or less the same outline allowing speed to catch prey.

Originally posted by bokinsmowl

heres a pelagic sea slug, it looks like a dragon. but it doesn't glide, its just cool.

That is freakin' sweet! I want one! How long do they live?

Wow, that looks awsome. Were wz it found agion. Sorry, don't keep up on the new fossils. Thats why i am here to learna about stuff...!
peace

That is freakin' sweet! I want one! How long do they live?

no idea how long they live for... but heres an interesting fact, it doesn't have lungs or gills, but those wing like arms are actually their respiratory organs! Guess thats how it breathes in water and on land... now thats freakin' sweet!

ps. sorry to hijack the thread.

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
\No, it's a successful body plan that's been repeated a few times, with more than a few varieties. A long time before the fossil critter outlined in the article above was Kuehneosaurus, another rib-winged lizard. Three feet long, with one-foot "wings". Like Xianglong and Draco, it was a lizard. But these are three unrelated genera, separated by tens of millions of years of each other, developing a body plan.

Fox is absolutly on the mark, here. We see the same options evolving and re-evolving in unrelated species. Another example of this is the sabertooth... there's quite a few different species of sabertoothed cats and things that look like sabertoothed cats.

Still, it's a beautiful fossil! The material from China tends to come from sandy desert areas, and are covered/preserved in a fairly soft sandstone that is easy to work. You often find full skeletons there... unlike the mess we get from the North Slope of Alaska and the even bigger lumps of rock and Alamosaurus from Big Bend.

Originally posted by bokinsmowl

heres a pelagic sea slug, it looks like a dragon. but it doesn't glide, its just cool.

this wins this years "coolest thing i've never heard of" award for me

Originally posted by bokinsmowl

That is freakin' sweet! I want one! How long do they live?

no idea how long they live for... but heres an interesting fact, it doesn't have lungs or gills, but those wing like arms are actually their respiratory organs! Guess thats how it breathes in water and on land... now thats freakin' sweet!

ps. sorry to hijack the thread.

No worries I guess I wanted to make a link of this Find with the Belief that dragons existed, nice find Does that slug come in black?

en.wikipedia.org...

Extinct reptiles similar to Draco (gliding). There are a number of unrelated extinct lizard-like reptiles with similar "wings" to the Draco lizards. Icarosaurus, Daedalosaurus, Coelurosauravus, Weigeltosaurus, and Kuehneosaurus. The largest of these, Kuehneosaurus, has a wingspan of 30 cm, and was estimated to be able to glide about 30 m.

- emphasis added

Extinct reptiles similar to Draco (gliding). There are a number of unrelated extinct lizard-like reptiles with similar "wings" to the Draco lizards. Icarosaurus, Daedalosaurus, Coelurosauravus, Weigeltosaurus, and Kuehneosaurus. The largest of these, Kuehneosaurus, has a wingspan of 30 cm, and was estimated to be able to glide about 30 m.

Icarosaurus --> en.wikipedia.org...
Daedalosaurus --> en.wikipedia.org...
Coelurosauravus -->en.wikipedia.org...
Weigeltosaurus -->en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

Animals which parachute, glide, or fly (extinct):
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...