Fossils Suggest Dinosaur First To Employ Concept

Who -- or what -- invented the biplane? Don't answer just yet... as it turns out, some feathered, tree-dwelling dinosaurs may have been the first to employ two sets of wings, way before the Wright Brothers took a stab at the idea.

The Daily Telegraph reports scientists have found fossils in China that show evidence of a flying dinosaur, dubbed Microraptor gui, that lived 125 million years ago... and sported a set of upper and lower wings.

Paleontologists differ on their opinions of how creatures like the Microraptor gui used their wings. Many say such creatures used their wings to glide from treetops, using a technique known as "phugoid gliding" -- where a creature dives to build speed, before swooping back up to another perch.

Other scientists maintain ground-based bipeds evolved into creatures that could take flight, in order to scale trees or hills... a method Texas Tech University professor Sankar Chatterjee, and retired aeronautical engineer R Jack Templin, say would not be possible for Microraptor gui, based on the simulation.

The creatively-named dinosaur (is it just us, or does Microraptor gui sound like the latest toy craze to come out of Japan? -- Ed.) was previously though to carry its second set of wings directly behind the first, similar to a dragonfly.

The simulation now indicates it's more likely the second, smaller set of wings were attached to the creature's hind legs, and set farther back from the primary wings. (That, technically, would make the animal a sesquiplane.)

In any case, it appears the fossils prove once again that mankind often takes its best ideas from nature.

"Aircraft designers have mimicked many of nature's flight inventions, usually inadvertently," said the men's study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "It seems likely that Microraptor invented the biplane 125 million years before the Wrights."

The scientists say Microraptor gui weighed about 21 lbs, was approximately 30 inches in length, and belonged to the same family of feathered dinosaurs that includes the earliest-known bird, Archaeopteryx.

Over time, they say, Microraptor gui evolved with larger and more specialized feathers, to give the dinosaur greater lift and more speed.

(First photo courtesy Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

FMI: www.pnas.org/