Study: early birds had four wings

Philippa Warr

The ancestors of modern birds probably had four wings rather than two, according to a study of fossils found in a Chinese museum.

The four-winged early birds had been identified from fossilised remains a number of years ago, but it was unclear whether the creatures were precursors to modern birds or whether they represented an evolutionary cul-de-sac and had simply died out.

However, eleven skeletons of primitive birds discovered at the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature feature evidence of having large feathers on their hind limbs. The remains date from the early Cretaceous period (around 120 million years ago) and, according to the study, "provide solid evidence for the existence of enlarged leg feathers on a variety of basal birds".