--- title: Winged Dinosaur, Ancestor of Velociraptor, Is Discovered description: The creature was feathered, but likely could not fly canonical: https://time.com/3962406/dinosaur-velociraptor-wings-feathers/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-17T13:03:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:58:31.488Z article:section: Science og:title: Scientists Discover New Winged Dinosaur, Ancestor of Velociraptor og:description: The creature was feathered, but likely could not fly og:url: https://time.com/3962406/dinosaur-velociraptor-wings-feathers/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46ab90c0f15717fc/69885b5d0b72e39f256e4f77/velociraptor-ancestor-dinosaur.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Velociraptor Dinosaur og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Scientists Discover New Winged Dinosaur, Ancestor of Velociraptor twitter:description: The creature was feathered, but likely could not fly twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46ab90c0f15717fc/69885b5d0b72e39f256e4f77/velociraptor-ancestor-dinosaur.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Scientists Discover New Winged Dinosaur, Ancestor of Velociraptor > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Waking the Dead: Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life [Watch (HLS stream): Waking the Dead: Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7mURxfr4.m3u8) (4:03)  _Published 2014-03-12. Conservationists and scientists have a saying, "extinction is forever." But soon biologists will clone long-gone animals in the hope to redefine that axiom to "DE-extinction is forever."_ by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jul 17, 2015 1:03 PM UTC  An artist's reconstructed impression of the new short-armed and winged feathered dinosaur Zhenyuanlong suni from the Early Cretaceous (ca. 125 million years ago) of China. An artist's reconstructed impression of the new short-armed and winged feathered dinosaur Zhenyuanlong suni from the Early Cretaceous (ca. 125 million years ago) of China. Chuang Zhao—Ministry of Land and Resources of China/AFP/Getty Images by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jul 17, 2015 1:03 PM UTC Scientists have found a [new dinosaur](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33510288) that was large, winged and feathered—but probably unable to fly. The creature, which measures 6 ft., 6 in. long, was well preserved in limestone in northeast China about 125 million years ago. It is an ancestor of the velociraptor, and is believed to be a precursor to the true bird, since this species was too large for its wings to support flight. The dinosaur is called “Zhenyuanlong,” meaning Zhenyuan’s dragon, after the man who obtained the fossil for the museum that studied it. One researcher told the BBC that even though it is a dinosaur, its feathers mean it would have looked “exactly like a turkey or a vulture.” \[[_BBC_](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33510288)\] ## Transcript [ SOUND ] [ MUSIC ] My name is Stuart Brand and I was trained as an ecologist. Conservation is about to take a turn because the technology was gonna allow us to use the DNA that's in the museum specimens and fossils to bring back extinct species [ MUSIC ] The passenger pigeon was around for 6 million years. And people remembered how amazing it was that these animals darkened the sky for hours at a time. There's these stories about these giant flocks blocking out the sun. And their wings sounding louder than thunder. We developed the techniques to hunt and net these birds and basically killed them all. And then it was really gone. When I was growing up, my mother said when the last one died in 1914 it broke America's heart. It was one of the prideful things that America had to show the world, and it was gone. This book. This is essentially the bible of passenger pigeon. I am currently the lead researcher for the deextinction project to bring the extinct passenger pigeon back to life. When I say, oh, we'll bring back a passenger pigeon, everyone goes, oh, my god, that's like Jurassic Park. And no, no, it's not. Not at all. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before. Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. I don't think a pigeon is going to, you know, pluck lawyers off of toilets. No. [ SOUND ]. Aah! [ BLANK_AUDIO ] So how we're actually going to go about deextinction. Every organism has a unique code in their genes. This one would be good I think. So these are actual DNA codes. From a chunk of a passenger pigeon foot. Now, if you can get DNA, then we can actually make it into a living cell. We're going to sequence its whole genome. We're gonna build from scratch the code that is a passenger pigeon, one gene at a time. Compare it to its closest relative. [ MUSIC ] Then we're gonna introduce DNA into the living cell of a band- tailed pigeon. And when you introduce an extinct animal's egg cell into a new mother, then you've changed the game. [ MUSIC ] Which has been done. The extinct Iranian Ibex was successfully cloned. That was the first deextinction. In this particular case, the animal only lived about ten minutes, but it was a proof of concept, and with further efforts, we hope, followed by everything from the passenger pigeon to the Tasmanian tiger. It's one of the most famous human- caused extinctions in the world. Benjamin, the last Tasmanian tiger, died in 1936. It was our direct activity that caused that extinction. For me, biotech is the future of conservation because our meddling is not unnatural. It is what species do. One of the things that gotten used to is the horrifying realization that extinction is forever. 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