Revolutionary Feathered Dinosaur Discovery in China Suggests Flight Evolved Multiple Times

The first Norellraptor barsboldi fossil is impressively well-preserved. (Wang et al., Nat. Comms., 2026) Key takeaways Powered by Yahoo Scout. Yahoo is using AI to generate key points from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. A newly discovered fossil of the Norellraptor barsboldi in China challenges previous beliefs about the evolutionary path birds took to fly. The Norellraptor barsboldi fossil is well-preserved, with feathers on its forelimbs and tail suggesting it could fly, but its evolutionary path to flight may have been different from that of birds. Research published in Nature Communications suggests that flight may have evolved independently at least twice within the Paraves group, raising questions about the shared developmental pattern driving the evolution of flying dinosaurs and birds.