(Xu, Zhou and Wang 2000)

The forests of early Cretaceous Asia are host to a wide range of feathered dinosaurs, from delicate Caudipteryx and lumbering Beipiaosaurus, to Microraptor, a genus of tiny, agile, tree-climbing deinonychosaurs.

At roughly half a meter in length, M. zhaoianus is smaller than a modern crow, more legs, tail, and spreading feathers than anything else.  These feathers deserve some special attention, since apart from the downy insulating fuzz that is one of the hallmarks of clade Coelurosauria, M. zhaoianus also sports fans of broad, air-catching flight feathers spreading from its arms, legs, and tail.  A vicious if tiny carnivore, M. zhaoianus these fans of feathers as control surfaces as it leaps from branch to branch in search of prey.  Tale and leg vanes deployed for stability, the little predator spreads its arms in a modification of the classical maniraptoran method of prey-capture, and deftly maneuvers its mid-air leaps to land with precision on a branch that may be many meters away from its take-off point. 

Though flightless, M. zhaoianus use their aerial agility to hunt and catch the many small creatures that live in the treetops, sweeping across the canopy in pursuit of mammals like Eomaia and Sinodelphys and birds such as Confuciusornis.  Having rather short and inflexible necks, these predators do not use their mouths to catch prey as much as their hands and feet, the latter possessing the upraised ice-pick talons of all deinonychosaurs.  The mouth, with a forward guard of smooth, backward-curving teeth, pulls flesh up to back teeth, serrated on the rear edges, that slice as the microraptor pulls meat across them (Mortimer).  The feet, armed with sharp claws on the middle two digits, a backward-facing first digit, and the deinonychosaurian hyper-extendable talon are masters of versatility, enabling the creature to run, perch, catch and slice prey, and rappell up vertical tree trunks with ease.  This deftness in the branches makes M. zhaoianus a dangerous predator of any arboreal animal.

Other sites containing pertinent information:

Dinodata's Microraptor page (with a very long and detailed description by HP Mickey Mortimer)

Luis Rey's amazing painting including several monkey-like M. zhaoianus

Various articles about M. zhaoianus

Boban Filipovic's M. zhaoianus model

Steve Brusatte's Microraptor article

Nature's "The Smallest Known Non-Avian Theropod Dinosaur"

 

 

 

© Daniel Bensen 2004
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