Meet the Tiny Dinosaur That Flew Like a Squirrel

Professor Pip adjusted his slightly crooked spectacles and patted the bulging pockets of his green lab coat. Out came a pair of folded paper wings, a roll of string, and a wide grin.

"Today, my fellow scientists," he announced, his bushy tail swishing behind him, "we're learning about a dinosaur that flew without flying!"

"That doesn't make sense!" giggled Mia.

"How do you fly without flying?" said Leo, scrunching up his nose.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Pip beamed. "Help me strap these on." He carefully tied a small paper wing to each of his front paws — and then, with a tiny "ah-HA!", he tied two MORE paper wings to his back paws.

"You have four wings!" Mia gasped.

"Precisely!" said Pip, climbing onto a low mossy log. "A team of fellow scientists in China just dug up a dinosaur shaped like THIS. They named it Jian changmaensis. About the size of a barn owl, it had long feathers on its arms AND its legs."

He hopped. WHOOSH! Pip drifted in a slow, lopsided arc and plopped softly into a pile of pine needles, tail puffing up like a feather duster.

"Did you FLY?" Asha asked, eyes huge.

"Not quite, my dear. I glided. There's a big difference." He scrambled up, dusting needles off his coat. "Flapping flight needs muscles strong enough to push air down hard. Gliding is more like… falling in slow motion."

"Like a paper airplane!" said Leo.

"Exactly right!" said Pip. "Scientists think Jian climbed trees and leapt — and those four feathered wings caught the air, like a parachute and a paper plane all in one. Almost like a modern flying squirrel."

"But why FOUR wings?" Mia wondered.

Pip's spectacles slipped down his nose. "Ah! That's the prize-winning question. Dinosaurs were trying things. Some had longer arms. Some had feathers on their legs. Some had both! Evolution is like a giant science fair — every creature is an experiment, and the ones that work get passed down to babies, and babies' babies. The two-winged birds we know today are the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of a contest dinosaurs were holding in the trees a hundred million years ago."

He looked up at a robin hopping on a high branch. "Every bird you see is a tiny living dinosaur that won the gliding game."

Pip handed each child a paper airplane. "Now you try. Throw it gently. Watch how the wings catch the air. You're testing the same idea Jian tested 120 million years ago."