Scientists have discovered a winged dinosaur

Researchers have found a winged dinosaur - a predecessor of the velociraptor - that they say was on the cusp of turning into a bird.The 6ft 6in (2m) animal was superbly protected in limestone, because of a volcanic emission that had covered it in north-east China. Furthermore, the 125-million year-old fossil recommends numerous different dinosaurs, including velociraptors, would have resembled "huge, soft executioner winged animals". In any case, it is far-fetched that it could fly.The dinosaur has been named Zhenyuanlong, signifying "Zhenyuan's mythical serpent" - out of appreciation for the man who secured the fossil for the historical center in Jinzhou, permitting it to be concentrated on. The University of Edinburgh and the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences cooperation is distributed in the diary Scientific Reports.

Lead researcher Dr Steve Brusatte said it was "the single most beautiful fossil I have had the privilege to work on". "It has short arms, and it is covered in feathers with proper wings with layers of quill-pen feathers," he said."So even though this is a dinosaur, even though it is a close relative of velociraptor, it looks exactly like a turkey or a vulture." Dr John Nudds, a senior lecturer in palaeontology at the University of Manchester, told BBC News the find was part of an "increasingly complex picture" of emerging evidence "that certainly a lot of dinosaurs and possibly even all of them had feathers or at least downy hair". Dr Brusatte said: "It will blow some people's minds to realise that those dinosaurs in the movies would have been even weirder, and I think even scarier - like big fluffy birds from hell." He said its large body made it unlikely Zhenyuanlong would have been able to fly."There are [museum] storerooms full of new dinosaur fossils that have never been studied before.

He added: "This is the most exciting time maybe in the history of palaeontology."