Four wings
It had long flight feathers on both its arms and its legs.
Feathered and unusual · Theropods
Microraptor
Small thief · MIKE-row-RAP-tor
A crow-sized dinosaur with long feathers on its arms and on its legs, giving it four wings.
- Size
- About 80cm long; 1kg
- Lived
- About 125 to 120 million years ago
- Found in
- Liaoning, north-east China
Flutters and scrambles after you. Move your pointer and see.
To scale
How big was it?
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Good to know
Six things about the microraptor
Glossy black
Its feathers were black with a glossy, blue-black sheen like a crow's or a starling's.
A glider, perhaps a flier
It certainly glided between trees, and may have been able to flap.
One of the smallest
It is among the smallest dinosaurs known that was not a bird.
We know its menu
Different fossils have a bird, a fish, a lizard and a small mammal inside them.
Hundreds of fossils
More than three hundred have been found.
The real thing
Photos of the microraptor
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What it ate
Birds, fish, lizards and small mammals.
How we know
Fossils from Liaoning show every feather, and even the pigment cells that give the colour.
Keep going
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