Bat-winged dinosaurs that could glide

Despite having bat-like wings, two small dinosaurs, Yi and Ambopteryx, struggled to fly, only managing to glide clumsily between the trees where they lived, according to a new study led by an international team of researchers, including McGill University Professor Hans Larsson. Unable to compete with other tree-dwelling dinosaurs and early birds, they went extinct after just a few million years. The findings, published in iScience , support that dinosaurs evolved flight in several different ways before modern birds evolved. "We know some dinosaurs could fly before they evolved into birds," says Professor Larsson, Director of McGill's Redpath Museum. "What this shows us is that at least one lineage of dinosaurs experimented with a completely different mode of aerial locomotion. Gliding evolved countless times in arboreal amphibians, mammals, lizards, and even snakes - and now we have an example of dinosaurs." Yi and Ambopteryx were small animals from the Late Jurassic of China, living about 160 million years ago. Weighing in at about half a kilogram, they are unusual theropod dinosaurs.