title: A new maniraptoran dinosaur from China with long feathers on the metatarsus.
abstract: The unusual presence of long pennaceous feathers on the feet of basal dromaeosaurid dinosaurs has recently been presented as strong evidence in support of the arboreal-gliding hypothesis for the origin of bird flight, but it could be a unique feature of dromaeosaurids and thus irrelevant to the theropod-bird transition. Here, we report a new eumaniraptoran theropod from China, with avian affinities, which also has long pennaceous feathers on its feet. This suggests that such morphology might represent a primitive adaptation close to the theropod-bird transition. The long metatarsus feathers are likely primitive for Eumaniraptora and might have played an important role in the origin of avian flight.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China. xingxu@vip.sina.com
authors.forename: Xing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Fucheng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002681:China; D025061:Dinosaurs / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification; D005241:Feathers / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005580:Fossils; D008684:Metatarsus / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D010163:Paleontology; D010802:Phylogeny