Mammals May Have Flown Before Birds

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2006/dec/13/121305654.html

NEW YORK (AP) - A new fossil discovery from China shows that a tiny squirrel-like creature glided through the air during the age of dinosaurs, more than 75 million years earlier than scientists had documented that ability in a mammal.

The creature might have even beaten birds into the air.

Like today's flying squirrels, it stretched a furry membrane between its limbs to provide an airfoil for gliding after it jumped from a tree. But it's not related to anything living today.

Scientists don't know exactly when the animal lived. Its remains could be anywhere from 130 million to 164 million years old, said Jin Meng of the American Museum of Natural History. He and colleagues from Beijing report the discovery in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

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[BlueJazz]

1. Forensic Scientists speculate that the Giant Flying Silver Squirrel looked like this...

:spank:

[BadgerKid]

3. We'd also have accepted this

[kenny blankenship]

2. Take that, birds!

In your face archaeopteryx !

[trotsky]

4. LMAO

:rofl: Nice one.