The remains of the Zhenyuanlong suni, a newly identified species of feathered dinosaur, was discovered by a paleontologist in China and could be the largest fossil ever to have a well-preserved set of bird-like wings.
Scientists said the dinosaur's complex wings with quill pen-like feathers separates the Zhenyuanlong suni from other, larger feathered dinosaurs that have been
discovered before, according the University of Edinburgh. A study on the dinosaur was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.
The Zhenyuanlong suni is a cousin of the Velociraptor, which researchers said became known to the general public through the "Jurassic Park" movies. Scientists from the university said that, while the wings of the dinosaur are shorter than others in the same family, the feathers are made up of a complex structures of fine branches stemming from a central shaft.
"This new dinosaur is one of the closest cousins of Velociraptor, but it looks just like a bird," Steve Brusatte, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who co-authored the study, said in the statement.
"It's a dinosaur with huge wings made up of quill pen feathers, just like an eagle or a vulture. The movies have it wrong — this is what Velociraptor would have looked like too," he added.
The name, which translates into "Zhenyuan Sun's dragon," according to National Geographic, was named in honor of the man who "secured the specimen for study." Scientists believe the feathered dinosaurs lived during the early Cretaceous period, roughly
125 million years ago, stated National Geographic.
Researchers were able to determine that the carnivorous dinosaur grew to about five feet long after finding a nearly complete skeleton along with its fossilized feathers in the Liaoning Province of China.
"The western part of Liaoning Province in China is one of the most famous places in the world for finding dinosaurs," Junchang Lü, of the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, who led the study, said in the University of Edinburgh statement.
"The first feathered dinosaurs were found here and now our discovery of Zhenyuanlong indicates that there is an even higher diversity of feathered dinosaurs than we thought. It's amazing that new feathered dinosaurs are still being found," Lü continued.