Protarchaeopteryx

What it was like

Protarchaeopteryx was a turkey-sized feathered dinosaur, an early relative of Oviraptor. It had long arms with feathers on them and a fan of feathers at the end of its tail.

Its arms were too short, and its feathers not shaped right, for real flight.

Its world

It lived about 126 to 120 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now northeastern China. Its fossil comes from the Yixian Formation, where it shared the land with Sinosauropteryx, Sinornithosaurus and the early oviraptor relative Incisivosaurus.

How it was found

Ji and Ji named Protarchaeopteryx in 1997, from a single find. It was one of the first feathered dinosaurs found in China.